Third Person Reference in Late Latin: Demonstratives, Definite Articles and Personal Pronouns in the Itinerarium Egeriae 9783110401943, 9783110378368

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Mari Johanne Bordal Hertzenberg Third Person Reference in Late Latin

Trends in Linguistics Studies and Monographs

Editor Volker Gast Editorial Board

Walter Bisang Jan Terje Faarlund Hans Henrich Hock Natalia Levshina Heiko Narrog Matthias Schlesewsky Amir Zeldes Niina Ning Zhang Editor Responsible for this volume Volker Gast

Volume 288

Mari Johanne Bordal Hertzenberg

Third Person Reference in Late Latin

Demonstratives, Definite Articles and Personal Pronouns in the Itinerarium Egeriae

ISBN 978-3-11-037836-8 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-040194-3 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-040209-4 ISSN 1861-4302 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2015 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck ♾ Printed on acid-free paper Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com

Acknowledgements This is a revised version of my doctoral dissertation, which I defended in October 2012. I wrote the dissertation as a PhD fellow on the project Pragmatic Resources in Old Indo-European Languages (PROIEL) at the University of Oslo. In writing my dissertation – and later in revising it – I benefited from the help of many people. First, I am indebted to my PhD supervisor, Dag Haug, for his constructive feedback, support and encouragement. He led me into the fascinating world of Latin linguistics, and has taught me much of what I know about Latin and linguistics. I am moreover grateful to my former colleagues in the PROIEL project, Eirik Welo, Angelika Müth, Hanne Eckhoff and Tatiana Nikitina, as well as PROIEL affiliates Federico Aurora and Øyvind Strand. Special thanks are due to Hanne Eckhoff and Tatiana Nikitina for comments on selected chapters of the dissertation, which I benefited greatly from. The present book has also benefited from the feedback of my dissertation evaluation committee, which consisted of Monika Asztalos, Tore Janson and Silvia Luraghi. Tore Janson and Silvia Luraghi offered me insightful observations and valuable suggestions at my doctoral defence. Furthermore, I would like to thank the series editor, Volker Gast, as well as an anonymous referee, whose criticisms and suggestions significantly improved the manuscript. All remaining errors, of course, are my own responsibility. The book would never have been completed without the support of my family and friends. My biggest debt I owe to my parents for their loving care and tireless support throughout my life. My grandfather secretly taught himself Latin and was perhaps the only one outside the academic world who understood what I was actually doing in my PhD project. I know that he would have been very proud of me today. I am grateful to my friends for making life full of fun and lending me shoulders to cry on whenever things get rough. Last, but by no means least, thanks to Kjersti for being who she is.

Contents Acknowledgements | v 1 1.1 1.1.1 1.1.2 1.1.4.2 1.1.4.3 1.1.4.4 1.1.5 1.1.6 1.1.6.1 1.1.6.2 1.1.6.3 1.1.6.4 1.1.6.5

Introduction | 1 Previous Research | 2 The Nature of Demonstratives, Definite Articles and Personal Pronouns | 2 The Interrelationship between the Demonstratives in Late Latin | 4 On the Rise of the Personal Pronoun | 16 Ipse – ‘barbarisme à la seconde puissance’? | 16 Why Ille was Eventually the Preferred Definite Article / Personal Pronoun | 17 Causal Factors behind the Changes of Ille and Ipse | 18 Research Questions | 19 Theoretical Issues | 19 The Interrelationship between the Referring Expressions | 20 Are Ille and Ipse Definite Articles and Personal Pronouns in the Itinerarium Egeriae? | 20 How did Ille/Ipse Become Definite Articles and Personal Pronouns? | 20 The Causes behind the Changes | 21

2 Theoretical Foundations | 22 2.1 Definiteness | 22 2.1.1 Definiteness as Uniqueness | 23 2.1.2 Definiteness as Familiarity | 25 2.1.2.1 Familiarity in Heim’s (1982) File Change Semantics | 25 2.1.3 Definiteness as Inclusiveness | 27 2.1.4 Definiteness as Identifiability | 28 2.1.4.1 Lyons (1999): The Grammaticalisation of Identifiability | 29 2.1.5 Evaluation of the Proposals: Definiteness as the Identifiability of Discourse Referents | 30 2.2 Accessibility and the Choice of Referring Expression | 35 2.2.1 The Variables Determining Accessibility | 36 2.2.1.1 Givenness Status | 36 2.2.1.2 Distance to the Antecedent | 38 2.2.1.3 Antecedent within the Current Frame/Sequence/Paragraph? | 39

viii | Contents 2.2.1.4 2.2.1.5 2.2.1.6 2.2.1.7 2.2.1.8 2.2.2 2.2.2.1 2.2.2.2 2.2.2.3 2.2.2.4 2.2.2.5 2.2.3 2.2.4 2.3 2.3.1 2.3.2 2.3.2.1 2.3.3 2.3.4 2.4 2.5

Animacy | 40 Antecedent Topicality | 40 Syntactic Function of the Antecedent | 43 Form of the Antecedent | 44 The Type of Clause in which the Antecedent Occurs | 45 Other Variables that May Influence the Choice of Referring Expression | 46 Competitors to the Role of Antecedent | 46 Type of Head Noun in the Anaphoric Noun Phrase | 47 Syntactic Function of the Anaphor | 48 Topicality of the Anaphor | 48 Backward and Forward Saliency | 48 Correlations between Accessibility and Various Referring Expressions | 49 Accessibility and Grice’s Maxim of Quantity | 51 Definite Articles, Personal Pronouns and Demonstratives | 55 Definite Articles | 55 Personal Pronouns | 56 A Note on Null Pronouns | 58 Demonstratives | 58 When has a Demonstrative Become a Definite Article or a Personal Pronoun? | 64 Intensifiers | 67 Summary | 70

3 Methods and Data Extraction | 71 3.1 The PROIEL Corpus | 71 3.1.1 Text Selection | 71 3.1.3.4 The Topic Guesser | 81 4 4.1 4.2 4.2.1 4.2.2 4.2.3 4.2.4 4.2.5 4.3

Full NPs, Overt Pronominal Forms and Null Pronouns | 89 A Restriction on pro | 91 Non-Anaphoric Uses | 94 New Referents | 94 ANCHORED Referents | 95 Inferable Referents | 96 Generally Known and Generic Referents | 97 Referents that are Present in the Immediate Situation | 99 Anaphoric Uses | 99

Contents | ix

4.3.1 4.3.1.1 4.3.1.2 4.3.1.3 4.3.1.4 4.3.1.5 4.3.1.6 4.3.1.7 4.3.1.8 4.3.1.9 4.3.2 4.3.2.1 4.3.2.2 4.3.2.3 4.3.2.4 4.3.2.5 4.3.2.6 4.3.2.7 4.3.2.8 4.3.3 4.4

The Choice between the Subject Anaphors | 100 Form of the Antecedent | 101 Syntactic function of the Antecedent | 104 Antecedent Topicality | 108 Topicality of the Anaphor Itself | 110 Animacy | 112 The type of Clause in which the Antecedent Occurs | 114 The Presence or Absence of Competing Referents | 117 Distance to the Antecedent | 121 Summary and Discussion of the Data | 125 The Choice between the Non-Subject Anaphors | 135 Form of the Antecedent | 135 Syntactic Function of the Antecedent | 138 Topicality of the Antecedent and the Anaphor | 140 Animacy | 143 The Type of Clause in which the Antecedent Occurs | 145 The Presence or Absence of Competing Referents | 147 Distance to the Antecedent | 149 Summary of the non-Subject Anaphors and Discussion of the Data | 152 Differences between the First and Second Part of the Itinerarium Egeriae | 158 Summary | 163

5 High Accessibility Markers: Pronominal Forms | 166 5.1 Is Pronominal Ipse an Intensifier in the Itinerarium Egeriae? | 167 5.2 A Note on Is | 172 5.3 Non-Anaphoric Uses of the Pronominal Forms | 173 5.3.1 New Referents | 173 5.3.2 ANCHORED Referents | 176 5.3.3 Inferable Referents | 179 5.3.4 Referents that are Present in the Immediate Situation | 180 5.4 Anaphoric Uses of the Pronominal Forms | 182 5.4.1 The Choice between the Pronominal Subject Anaphors | 183 5.4.1.1 Form of the Antecedent | 184 5.4.1.2 Syntactic Function of the Antecedent | 188 5.4.1.3 Antecedent Topicality | 192 5.4.1.4 Anaphor Topicality | 193 5.4.1.5 Animacy | 198

x | Contents 5.4.1.6 5.4.1.7 5.4.1.8 5.4.1.9 5.4.1.10 5.4.1.11 5.4.2 5.4.2.1 5.4.2.2 5.4.2.3 5.4.2.4 5.4.2.5 5.4.2.6 5.4.2.7 5.4.2.8 5.4.2.9 5.4.2.10 5.4.2.11 5.4.2.12 5.5 5.5.1 5.5.1.1 5.5.1.2 5.5.1.3 5.5.2 5.5.3 5.6 5.7 6 6.1 6.2 6.2.1 6.2.2 6.2.3 6.2.4

The Type of Clause in which the Antecedent Occurs | 200 Position in the Anaphoric Chain | 202 Tendency of the Referent to be Picked up in the Later Discourse | 204 Distance to the Antecedent | 208 The Presence or Absence of Competing Referents | 210 Summing up the Pronominal Subject Anaphors | 211 The Choice between the Pronominal non-Subject Anaphors | 217 Form of the Antecedent | 217 Syntactic Function of the Antecedent | 220 Syntactic Function of the Anaphor | 223 Antecedent Topicality | 226 Anaphor Topicality | 228 Animacy | 229 The Type of Clause in which the Antecedent Occurs | 232 Position in the Anaphoric Chain | 233 Tendency of the Referent to be Picked up in the Later Discourse | 235 Distance to the Antecedent | 237 The Presence or Absence of Competing Referents | 238 Summing Up the Pronominal non-Subject Anaphors | 239 Are Ille and Ipse Personal Pronouns in the Itinerarium Egeriae? | 241 Anaphoric Ille and Ipse | 241 Antecedent in the Same Sentence | 242 Antecedent in the Previous Sentence | 247 Antecedent Further Away | 251 Non-Anaphoric Ille and Ipse | 255 On the Context of Origin of the Personal Pronouns | 258 Differences between Part One and Part Two of the Text | 259 Summary | 260 Low Accessibility Markers: Full NPs | 263 Is Adnominal Ipse an Intensifier in the Itinerarium Egeriae? | 264 Non-Anaphoric Uses of the Full NPs | 267 New Referents | 267 ANCHORED Referents | 268 Inferable Referents | 272 Generally Known Referents | 273

Contents | xi

6.2.5 6.2.6 6.2.7 6.3 6.3.1 6.3.1.1 6.3.1.2 6.3.1.3 6.3.1.4 6.3.2 6.3.2.1 6.3.2.2 6.3.2.3 6.3.2.4 6.3.2.5 6.3.3 6.3.3.1 6.3.3.2 6.3.3.3 6.3.4 6.3.5 6.3.6 6.3.6.1 6.3.6.2 6.4 6.5 6.6 7 7.1 7.1.1

Generic Referents | 274 Referents that are Present in the Immediate Situation | 275 Are Ille and Ipse Definite Articles in their Non-Anaphoric Uses? | 280 Anaphoric Use of the Full NPs | 284 Animacy Status PLACE, TIME and CONCRETE in Part One | 290 Antecedent Topicality | 291 Anaphor Topicality | 293 Syntactic Function of the Anaphor | 295 Form of the Antecedent | 297 Interim Summary | 299 Ipse NPs | 299 Ille NPs | 300 Hic NPs | 300 Idem NPs | 300 Is NPs | 301 Possible Reasons for the Tendency of PLACE/TIME/CONCRETE to Show Demonstrative NPs in Part One | 305 Are there Other Types of Referents in the Other Animacy Categories? | 307 Animacy Status = TIME: Demonstratives as Tracking Devices | 308 Animacy Status = PLACE/CONCRETE: Demonstratives as Emotional Devices / Discourse Prominence Markers | 310 Animacy Status PLACE, TIME and CONCRETE in Part Two | 317 Animacy Status Other than PLACE, TIME or CONCRETE | 322 Differences between Part One and Part Two of the Text | 325 Why does TIME show More Demonstrative NPs in Part One than in Part Two? | 326 Why do the Animacy Categories other than TIME Show More Demonstrative NPs in Part One? | 330 On Ille NPs and Ipse NPs as Heads of Restrictive Relative Clauses | 330 On the Contexts of Origin of the Definite Articles | 331 Summary | 332 Conclusions | 335 The Interrelationship between the Third Person Referring Expressions | 335 An Accessibility Hierarchy of the Referring Expressions | 338

xii | Contents 7.1.2 7.2 7.3 7.3.1 7.3.2 7.4 7.5 7.6 7.6.1 7.6.2 7.7

Are Ille and Ipse Synonymous in the Itinerarium Egeriae? | 339 Are Ille and Ipse Definite Articles and Personal Pronouns in the Itinerarium Egeriae? | 340 How did Ille and Ipse Develop into Definite Articles and Personal Pronouns? | 340 Did Ipse Develop into a Personal Pronoun and Definite Article through a Demonstrative Stage? | 341 Why was Ille Eventually the Preferred Definite Article and Personal Pronoun? | 342 On the Proposed Causes behind the Changes | 342 Is Egeria’s Latin Representative for Fourth Century Latin? | 343 Some Theoretical Implications for Accessibility and Referring Expressions | 350 Accessibility and the Variables Determining Accessibility | 350 Correlations between Accessibility and the Various Expressions | 353 Directions for Further Research | 354

Bibliography | 355 Index | 367

1 Introduction This is a study of third person reference in the Late Latin text commonly known as the Itinerarium Egeriae.1 I take an accessibility theoretic approach to the referring expressions, focusing on what is traditionally labelled demonstratives (hic, iste, ille, is, ipse and idem), bare NPs, and null pronouns. My approach is furthermore an onomasiological one. That is to say, instead of asking what each 2 p (the approach pp which is usuallyy taken in the referring expression expresses relevant literature), does the author of the Itinerarium Egeriae which referring expression does she most frequently use to refer to a highly accessible referent? The study of the Itinerarium Egeriae is motivated by the remarkably high frequency of demonstratives in this text. Moreover, the Itinerarium Egeriae is often discussed in connection with the development of the Romance definite articles (and third person personal pronouns), and conversely, the possible definite article status of ille and ipse is commonly discussed in linguistic studies of the Itinerarium Egeriae (in particular E. Löfstedt 1911; Trager 1932; Renzi 1976; Väänänen 1987; Nocentini 1990; Christol 1994; Vincent 1997; 1998; Fruyt 2003). Despite copious research on the development of the definite articles (less on the personal pronouns) in Latin/Romance, there is little agreement on many aspects of that development and the situation of the demonstratives in Late Latin. Scholars moreover tend to overlook the fact that before we can say anything about their development, we must study ille and ipse synchronically and establish their properties at the different stages in their development. On this background, the aim of the present study is to give a detailed account of how ille and ipse are used in the late fourth century, more specifically

1 There are several other variants of the author s name and of the title of the text. In addition to Egeria, variants of the former include Aetheria, Echeria, Heteria and even Silvia. Besides the title Itinerarium Egeriae, the text is often referred to as Peregrinatio Aetheriae. It is beyond the scope of this book to discuss the identity and name(s) of the author or title of the text. Since Itinerarium Egeriae is the most commonly used title today, that is what I will be using here. Neither will I discuss the dating of the text. Most scholars now agree on a late fourth or early fifth-century origin, which seems reasonable to me (see Maraval, 1982; Wilkinson, 1981 and references therein for discussions of these issues). 2 This would be a semasiological approach.

2

Introduction

in the Itinerarium Egeriae, thereby contributing to the discussion of the development of the definite articles and personal pronouns in Latin /Romance. Importantly, however, we cannot study ille and ipse in isolation, which has often been done.3 Rather, we must study ille and ipse as part of the larger system of referring expressions, including bare NPs and null pronouns. Hence, this is a study not only of ille and ipse, but of third person referring expressions more generally. As such, the present study differs from other approaches. Moreover, this study differs from most other approaches in two further respects. First, my approach is primarily a pragmatic one, and second, I make use of an electronic corpus and automatic data extraction, which enables the study of large amounts of data, and hence of referring expressions more in general. In the remaining sections of this introductory chapter, I review the research on the demonstratives in Late Latin especially ille and ipse and their development. As I pointed out above, this is a synchronic study of the third person referring expressions in the late fourth century text Itinerarium Egeriae. The study is nevertheless intended as a contribution to the discussion of the development of the demonstratives in Latin/Romance, in particular ille and ipse. Hence, the literature that is primarily concerned with diachrony is relevant as well. As will beome clear, some issues regarding the demonstratives and their development have been thoroughly discussed in the literature, whereas other aspects have received little attention.

1.1 Previous Research 1.1.1 The Nature of Demonstratives, Definite Articles and Personal Pronouns p p p such as First, few scholars discuss the nature and properties of central concepts essential for a study of ille and ipse. Admittedly, we find some statements about the difference between demonstratives and definite articles. For example, the demonstrative is said to have become a definite article when it obligatorily accompanies the noun (Väänänen 1981: 121), when it is obligatory in at least one of its functions (Selig 1992: 116), when it is used in non-Classical ways (Renzi 1976: 31) or when it is merely a

3 Exceptions are Trager (1932), Väänänen (1987), Selig (1992), Christol (1994), Fruyt (2003) and Nocentini (1990). But they are concerned with the demonstratives only, not with referring expressions in general.

Previous Research

3

subsidiary tool (Rosén 1994: 145). Such statements, however, are rather imprecise and not very informative with regard to the nature and functions of demonstratives and definite articles. Some scholars attempt to give more precise characterisations of the various categories. Renzi (1997: 8), for instance, gives a list of semantic features of demonstratives, personal pronouns and definite articles. I do not give the list in detail here. Suffice it to note that the fundamental difference between personal pronouns, definite articles and demonstratives is that demonstratives have a p p deictic feature, whereas personal pronouns and definite articles do not. The ature. That is to say, a demonstrative locates the referent relative to the interlocutors. To Harris (1980a; 1980b), definite articles and personal pronouns are y are [+definite]. Demonstratives are [+definite] as well, but in addition they [+demonstrative] [+demonstrative], he states (Harris 1980a: 142), automatically implies the marking of proximity. Thus, demonstratives are also characterised by what he calls [1 proximity], [2 proximity] or [3 proximity], or [-proximity].4

DP Spec DemP DPpron

Figure 1:

D art ( 2001) analysis of demonstratives, personal pronouns and articles

4 Classical Latin hic has the feature [1 proximity], iste [2 proximity], ille [3 proximity] and is [

4

Introduction

Giusti (2001) describes the development of demonstratives, definite articles and pronouns within a minimalist framework. Her approach is rather technical, and I do not discuss it in detail here. Suffice it to note that demonstratives and strong pronouns,5 she assumes, project full structures. Definite articles and weak pronouns, on the other hand, are functional heads. 6 Figure 1 above illustrates the difference (from Giusti 2001: 159). As we can see, the full structure projected by a demonstrative (DemP) or a strong personal pronoun (DPpron) occupies the specifier position in the DP (determiner phrase). The article (like the weak personal pronouns, although not included in the illustration), on the other hand, occupies the head position of the DP. In sum, some attempts have been made in the literature to define the conlars leave such theoretical considerations out of their discussion. The interrelationship between the demonstratives in Late Latin, on the other hand, is widely discussed in the literature. The next section presents different views on the demonstratives in Late Latin.

1.1.2 The Interrelationship between the Demonstratives in Late Latin With regard to the interrelationship between ille and ipse, Aebischer (1948) states, ille and ipse had merged in Late Latin, being sematically (nearly) identical. According to Aebischer, ille and ipse are synonymous in the Itinerarium Egeriae. The period during which they were nearly synonymous, he claims (Aebischer 1948: 201), lasted for centuries. Other scholars emphasise the distinct functions of ille and ipse in Late Latin. The common opinion on ipse is that it is anaphoric (Renzi 1976: 29; 1979: 260-261; L. Löfstedt 1981: 275; Väänänen 1987: 50; Nocentini 1990: 146; Orlandini 1992: 198; Selig 1992: 153; Christol 1994: 150; Pieroni 2010: 461). Vincent points to the topic marking function of ipse (Vincent 1997: 155; 1998: 418), a

5 Pronouns , she states, project a full structure (Giusti 2001: 165). Later, however, it becomes clear that it must be strong pronouns that project full structures, whereas weak pronouns, like definite articles, are functional heads (Giusti 2001: 168) 6 Some works on syntax distinguish between lexical and functional categories. The term y lexical category y applies to those parts of speech and their phrasal counterparts that form open classes and have full semantic content. The functional categories are the parts of speech that form closed classes and have mainly just functional content.

Previous Research

5

function that fits its etymological value of contrast and continuity (Vincent 1997: 159). Carlier & De Mulder (2010), who recognise that both ipse and ille have anaphoric functions, give a more detailed account of anaphoric ipse. Ipse, they argue (2010: 261), is a strong marker of identification that strengthens the anaphoric chain when there is risk of ambiguity due to other intervening referents or because it is for some other reason unexpected that the referent is identical to the previously mentioned one. They give the following example of the latter (Carlier & De Mulder 2010: 258): (1)

[Ebroinus] Leudesio sub dolo fidem Ebroin-NOM Leudesius-DAT under fraud-ABL.SG confidence-ACC.SG promitti se simulans fefellit, promise-INF.PASS REFL.ACC.SG feigning-NOM.SG deceive-PRF.3SG facto placito ut coniuracione facta made-ABL.SG meeting-ABL.SG that alliance-ABL.SG made-ABL.SG cum pacae discederint. Sed Ebroinus fallaciter with peace-ABL.SG part-PRF.3PL but Ebroin-NOM deceitfully agens ut solebat, conpatri acting-NOM.SG as be.wont-IMPF.3SG godfather-DAT.SG suo insidias praeparans ipsum POSS.REFL.DAT.SG ambush-ACC.PL preparing-NOM.SG ipse-ACC.SG 7 Leudesium Leudesius-ACC kill-PRS.3SG Ebroin deceived Leudesius by making a false promise that they should arrange a meeting and, after having exchanged loyalty oaths to each other, should part friends. But, as usual, Ebroin acted treacherously. He laid an ambush for his godfather and slew this same Leudesius. (Fredegarius Continuationes 2, 8. century)

acter, after having given his word to his godfather Leudesius, Somewhat differently, y Fruyt y (2003) assumes that ipse p is an intensifier mean2003: 102 103). Although ipse occurs in anaphoric noun phrases in the Itinerarium

7 In the Latin examples in this book, the noun phrase under discussion is underlined. Its antecedent (if any) is in boldface.

6

Introduction

Egeriae, Fruyt (2003: 102 103) points out, it is not itself anaphoric in this text (but it is in Augustine, for instance), insofar as it can be combined with anaphoric ille or is (as in (2)). Ipse appears in anaphoric (as in (2)) as well as in nonanaphoric noun phrases (as in (3)): (2)

Specialis special-NOM.SG medianus, middle-NOM.SG

autem ille Ipse ille but ille-NOM.SG ipse-NOM.SG ille-NOM.SG in quo descendit maiestas in REL.ABL.SG descend-PRF.3SG gloryy NOM.SG God-GEN

God came down'8 (Itin. II. 5 6) (3)

Lectus read-NOM.SG libro book-ABL.SG

est etiam locus ipse de be-PRS.3SG also place-NOM.SG ipse-NOM.SG from Moysii Moses-GEN

y Fruyt y observes the use of ipse p with the sense of Classical Latin idem, Finally, Nocentini (1990: 145) and E. Löfstedt (1911: 65). Whereas ipse is usually claimed to be anaphoric, ille is assumed to be used when the referent has not been previously mentioned in the discourse, but is identifiable (usually) by virtue of a restrictive relative clause (Nocentini 1990: 146; Orlandini 1992: 198; Selig 1992: 165; Christol 1994: 149; Vincent 1997: 155; 1998: 416; Fruyt 2003: 109; Carlier & De Mulder 2010: 259). Such is the case in (4) for instance: (4)

in cuius capite ille in REL.GEN.SG head-ABL.SG ille-NOM.SG est, ubi iterum locutus be-PRS.3SG where twice spoken-NOM.SG ei Deus that-DAT.SG God-NOM

locus place-NOM.SG est be-PRS.3SG

8 The translations of passages from the Itinerarium Egeriae are adopted from Feltoe & McClure (1919), but occasionally altered to fit my view of the phenomena at hand, without this being indicated in the examples.

Previous Research

7

Fruyt (2003: 108 109) is alone, it seems, in noting that non-anaphoric ille can be the head not only of a restrictive relative clause, but also of an appositional subordinate clause, as in (5): (5)

Illud sane satis admirabile ess ut ille-NOM.SG truly y very y admirable-NOM.SG be-PRS.3SG that

Renzi (1976; 1979), L. Löfstedt (1981: 275), Väänänen (1987: 50), Fruyt (2003: 108) and Carlier & De Mulder (2010) find that ille can be anaphoric as well. Carlier & De Mulder (2010) gives a more detailed description of anaphoric ille: ille, they state, implies that the referent is not already salient in the context or not ipresented as it was given before. As they put it, ille cation of the referent and creates thus a discontinuity y in the referential chain, AD): (6)

cernens regina fuerat fuisse realising-NOM.SG queen-NOM.SG be-PLUPRF.3SG be-INF.PRF suggessit quod illam incarcerated-ACC.SG propose-PRF.3SG that ille-ACC.SG parentem Francorum relative-ACC.SG Frank-GEN.PL

Illam p parentem Francorum m

s back to regina,

noun phrase because this noun phrase gives new information about the queen, namely that she was a relative of the Franks. Is does not have a very marked demonstrative character in the Itinerarium Egeriae according to Trager (1932: 13 14). This seems to imply that is is more like a personal pronoun. Is, Fruyt (2003: 106) argues, is restricted in the Itinerarium Egeriae. It is found in fixed expressions, and it is mainly used pronominally y pronominal is has two basic uses, (see also Trager 1932: 12). According to Fruyt,

8

Introduction

-headed relative clauses 107).9 Adnominally, it occurs in temporal and spatial expressions that is, in expressions like in eo loco, ea hora a ntini 1990: 144). Iste, Trager (1932) argues, always y appears in the context of a second person iste mayy still be syntacticaly verb in the Itinerarium Egeriaee time, however, he states (Trager 1932: 16), iste

iste a second person / medial demonstrative (as it is in Classical Latin), or as a first person / proximal demonstrative (like Classical Latin hic or English this). According to Nocentini (1990: 146) and Christol (1994: 146), iste is a proximal deictic in the Itinerarium Egeriae, and it is used in direct speech (see also Adams 1967: 26; Väänänen 1987: 48). (7) is an example: (7)

Nam ecce ista via quam uidetis for behold iste-NOM.SG road-NOM.SG REL.ACC.SG see-PRS.2PL

Along the same lines, Fruyt y (2003: 117) calls iste -linguistic uses in direct speech. Hic, according to Fruyt (2003: 112), has what she calls a resumptive function; it marks the transition from one sentence to another in the neuter singular p y Väänänen (1987: 48). In other words, it or plural, a function observed also by (1996) terms (see Section 2.3.3 below). (8) is an example: (8)

Tunc dictum est michi: Haec est then said-NOM.SG be-PRS.3SG I-DAT this-NOM.SG be-PRS.3SG ciuitas regis Nam ciuitas city-NOM.sg king-GEN.SG Melchizedek-INDECL for city-NOM.SG hic est locus, ubi optulit this-NOM be-PRS.3SG place-NOM.SG where offer-PRF.3SG Melchisedech hostias Deo Melchizedek-INDECL sacrifice-ACC.PL God-DAT pure-ACC.PL

9 The term light-headed relative is borrowed from Citko (2004). The term refers to relative clauses whose head is a demonstrative pronoun instead of a full noun phrase, as in French Jean lit ce qu u il aime (lit. Jean reads this that he loves (from Citko 2004: 97).

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sicut scriptum as written-NOM.SG Statim ergo ut immediatelyy then as

est eum fecisse. be-PRS.3SG that-ACC.SG do-INF.PRF haec this-ACC.PL hear-PRF.1SG

where Melchizedek offered p pure sacrifices to God, as it is written of XIII.4 XIV.1) In addition, hic

-cata-

hic quii q (x) of hic in the Itinerarium Egeriae. Fruyt (2003: 112) gives the following example: (9)

(ipsam ergo Haec est autem ipse p -ACC.SG then valley-ACC.SG this-NOM.SG be-PRS.3SG but in qua filii Israhel valley-NOM.SG in REL.ABL.SG son-NOM.PL Israel-INDECL commorati abode-NOM.PL be-PRS.3PL

Finally, Väänänen (1987: 48), Christol (1994: 145) and Fruyt (2003: 112) find that hic too can be the head of a relative clause. Trager g (1932) says y nothing g of the functions of hicc tpresence of is, Trager (1932: 14) nevertheless states, hic meaning. To sum up this section, we have seen how the interrelationship between the demonstratives in Late Latin, or more specifically, in the Itinerarium Egeriae, has been described in the literature. Scholars have moreover discussed when, how and why ille and ipse were transformed into definite articles and personal pronouns. As will become clear in Sections 1.1.3 through 1.1.5, opinions on these questions are far from concurrent.

10

Introduction

1.1.3 When did Ille and Ipse Become Definite Articles / Are Ille and Ipse Definite Articles in the Itineriarium Egeriae? Many works concerned with the development of ille and ipse into definite articles and personal pronouns do not attempt to give a precise dating of the changes. Some statements can be found, but there is little general agreement, and nothing is to my knowledge said about the personal pronouns. Stolz & Schmalz (1928: 480 482), assume that ipse is a full article in the Vecentury tus Latina , the Latin Bible texts that existed before Jerome Vulgate translation. Rosén (1994: 145) finds the beginning of the article in the works of Augustine (late fourth century AD). For E. Löfstedt (1956: 373) it is only in the sixth century that we find true instances of incipient definite articles in certain contexts. Other scholars date the emergence of the articles to the Romance period, for instance Lapesa (1961: 29), Väänänen (1981: 121) and Banniard (1998: 319). Although Trager (1932) dates the emergence of the definite articles to after the end of the seventh century (Trager 1932: 186), he nonetheless remarks that ille is more likely than ipse to retain its original demonstrative value in the Itinerarium Egeriae. That is, ipse resembles a definite article more than ille does (Trager 1932: 26, 30). Along the same lines, Christol (1994) argues that ipse functions as an anaphoric article in the Itinerarium Egeriae, whereas ille retains its original demonstrative value. Pieroni (2014: 7) explicitly states that ille g rItinerarium Egeriae. Nocentini (1990), on the other hand, takes the view that ille and ipse func10 in the Itinerarium Egeriae, being sometimes definite articles and sometimes demonstratives. In each of their occurrences, ille and ipse can be characterised either as a demonstrative or as a definite article, but importantly, never as a compromise between the two categories. This is the assumption I will make as well (see Section 2.3.4 below).

1.1.4 How Ille and Ipse Developed into Definite Articles and Personal Pronouns 1.1.4.1 On the Rise of the Definite Article Several hypotheses have been put forward to explain how the definite article originated. As this section will show, the shift from demonstrative to definite

10 articles.

ille and ipse as incipient definite

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article has been explained in both syntactic, pragmatic, structural and phonological terms. y According to Meyer-Lübke (1920: 212; 1974: 216), the article was used initialLübke 1974: 216). Vincent (1997; 1998) agrees with Meyer-Lübke to some extent, stating that objects in their normal, postverbal position appear without a determiner, whereas dislocated (i.e. topicalised) objects are indeed reinforced by ipse in Late Latin (Vincent 1998: 429). After the loss of case endings, Vincent states, when an object is topicalised and dislocated to the left from its normal, postverbal position, this movement is indicated by pronominal resumption (by means of ille) or by the topic marker (ipse) (Vincent 1998: 430). (10) is an exama , appears in the first position of ple of both. The direct object, cuppa the sentence. The fact that cuppa is dislocated from the post-verbal position in which it would normally appear, is indicated both by the presence of ipsa in the object noun phrase and by the resumptive pronoun la (= illam): (10)

ipsa cuppa frangant la ipse p -ACC.SG cupp ACC.SG break-PRS.SBJV.3PL ille-ACC.SG all-ACC.SG Lex Salica , 8. century)

Vincent acknowledges that ipse occurs with nouns in other syntactic functions as well; important for its development into definite article is its original value of contrast and identity (Vincent 1997: 155; 1998: 418). This makes ipse suitable as p shift, and through its topic p marking function ipse p could devela marker of topic (Vincent 1997: 158). Unfortunately, y Vincent does not account sufficientlyy for the p development of ille Rosén (1994) argues against Meyerwith subjects. In her view, subjects do not need explicit definiteness marking because there is an evident logical aptness for a subject, if also a topic, to be definite. Therefore, a subject will appear with the definite article only when the article has already become constant and compulsory (Rosén 1994: 140). However, when the subject is dislocated from its normal position, the situation is different. The definite article, she maintains, emerged precisely in the context of dislocated elements. She remarks that in Classical Latin, definiteness was ex-

12

Introduction

pressed by word order (Rosén 1994: 135).11 The origin of the definite article, then, can be found in those cases in which word order and syntactic position do not suffice to render a noun definite, or where position per se marks indefiniteness. Such is the case for example when the subject is dislocated from its normal, sentence-initial position, as in (11): (11)

Noverat eos iam illa get.to.know-PLUPRF.3.SG that-ACC.PL already ille-NOM.SG mater mother-NOM.SG 1994: 141)

(2014) investigation of the Itinerarium Egeriae shows that post-verbal subject noun phrases tend to be marked by ille, and she considers this an important context for the emergence of the definite article. She connects the presence of ille in post-verbal subject noun phrases with the fact that these are parts of existential and presentative constructions. In such constructions, she claims, the subject noun phrase is not only argumental, but also fullfils a predicative and/or rhematic function, functions that are normally assumed by the verb. The atypical combination of the syntactic category subject with these functions calls for a specific marker, that is, ille. (12) is an example: (12)

et ibi and there euangelii Gospelp GEN.SG

denuo legitur ille locus anew read-PRS.PASS.3SG ille-NOM.SG place-NOM.SG resurrectionis Resurrection-GEN.SG

(Itin. XXXVIII.2, cited in Pieroni 2014: 5) Dislocation is important to Nocentini (1990) as well. When word order had become fixed, he states (Nocentini 1990: 154 157), the definite articles originated as a strategy for marking the state of the noun with respect to the pragmatic categories theme/rheme and given/new when word order is altered. When the theme is dislocated from its usual, initial position, for instance, the noun phrase will appear with ille or ipse.

11 Bauer (2009) discusses other strategies of definiteness marking in Classical Latin.

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hand, the emotional, affective usage of ille and ipse was essential for their development into definite articles. The definite article, they assume, originated in contexts where a demonstrative is not required for the identification of the referent, but is selected for expressive purposes and functions as a marker of focus p y articleof attention (Trager 1932: 163; Epstein 1993: 129; 2001: 186). The early, itioned reinforced expressions, brought into use by y the necessity y of conveying y logical analysis; y on the contrary, y [the demonstratives] are wholly y non-logical manner [led] to their beginning to function as articles, in places p where there is no need for emp Evaluating the hypothesis of Epstein, Carlier & De Mulder (2010) argue that by using a demonstrative the speaker not only signals the textual importance of the referent, as Epstein claims; he also tries to guide the hearer to the intended referent. A strict separation between referential use 12 use is therefore artificial (Carlier & De Mulder 2010: 253). According to Carlier & De Mulder, the definite article originated as an explicit marker regulating speaker-hearer interaction. More specifically, the recognitional 13 use of demonstrative ille is essential for its development into definite article. In this use, ille invites the addressee to mobilise previous knowledge to identify the referent (Carlier & De Mulder 2010: 263). Demonstratives used recognitionally and definite articles are similar insofar as they do not require the referent to be present in the context or immediate situation. Carlier & De Mulder (2010: 264) point out, however, that there is an important difference: In the recognitional use of the demonstrative, the referent is identifiable on the basis of specific knowledge shared by speaker and hearer. In characteristic uses of the definite article, on the other hand, the identification of the referent is based on stereotypical knowledge, or knowledge shared by the all members of the relevant speech community.14 The distal demonstrative becomes a definite article when the shared knowledge necessary for the identification of the referent is no longer presented as specific to the speaker and addressee, but consists of knowledge shared by all members of the speech community (Carlier & De Mulder 2010: 264).

12 I.e. what I ca below). 13 See Section 2.3.3 below for an explanation of this term. 14 See examples (49), (51) and (52) in Section 2.3.1 below.

14

Introduction

According to Selig (1992), a structural reorganisation of the system of definiteness markers led to the rise of articles, without any change in the semantics of the determiners. In Classical Latin, she states (Selig 1992: 117), zero marking p p of (in)definiteness was the unmarked option, whereas explicit marking had an attentionsfunction. Table 1 shows the Classical Latin system: Table 1: Organisation of the Classical Latin system of definiteness marking according to Selig (1992: 117) Non-focalising

Focalising1 (non-emphatic)

Focalising2 (emphatic)

Ø+N

Is + N Unus + N

Hic + N Iste + N Ille + N Ipse + N

In early Romance, the marking of (in)definiteness had become obligatory in specific noun phrases, and this led to a reorganisation of the (in)definiteness markers (Selig 1992: 118). The difference between zero marking and explicit marking was no longer focalising vs. non-focalising, but non-specific vs. specific.15 Specific noun phrases were now marked by a determiner, and zero marking had become the marked option. As a result of this reorganisation, the originally non-emphatic determiners is and unus saw an increase in their contexts of use, which in turn resulted in their being defocalised to articles. The originally emphatic determiners, then, took over the role of the non-emphatic determiner is (Selig 1992: 118). Table 2 shows the organisation of the determiners at this intermediate stage of their development: Table 2: Intermediate organisation of the system of definiteness marking

15

Non-focalising

Focalising1 (non-emphatic)

Article (is/unus) + N

Hic + N Iste + N Ille + N Ipse + N

-

Focalising2 (emphatic)

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Finally, ille took over from is the role of definite article, and new determiners were adopted in the focalising functions. Giusti (2001) accounts for the transformation of ille and ipse into definite articles in phonological terms. As we saw in Section 1.1.1 above, she assumes that an article is syntactically the (functional) head of the DP, whereas demonstrative and strong personal pronouns project full structures in the specifier position of the DP. Figure 1 showed the difference. I repeat it here for convenience as Figure 2: DP Spec DemP DPpron

D art

Figure 2:

Giusti connects the reanalysis of ille as a functional head i.e. as a definite article with its p phonological weakening into a monosyllabic y word (ille > le).

rise of the definite article by appealing to phonological changes. For example, why do not all monosyllabic words become reanalysed as definite articles? Moreover, as Giusti herself points out, the situation could well have been the opposite: that the new syntactic analysis of ille triggered the loss of its first syllable (Giusti 2001: 167). Finally, Classical Latin contexts in which the demonstrative appears in a nominalising function, often without a clear demonstrative value, have been considered important for the rise of the definite articles. As examples of this, Hofmann & Szantyr (1972: 191 192) mention instances in which the demonstrative appears with a Greek word, with a prepositional phrase, with an indeclinable noun or with an infinitive (see also Rosén 1994: 133). (13) is an example of ille + infinitive: (13)

Ipsum illud aemulari ipse-NOM.SG ille-NOM.SG rival-INF

16

Introduction

Rosén (1994: 131) suggests that ille is a mere marker of nominalisation also when it is intercalated between a noun and an adjective, as in (14): (14)

Porcus ille silvaticus pig-NOM.SG ille-NOM.SG wild-NOM.SG p

To L. Löfstedt noun phrases precisely of the type in (14) consisting of noun + ille + adjective j were essential for the development p of ille into definite article oreilles puissant attribuer une without our ears being capable of attributing a clear , translation mine] (L. Löftstedt 1981: 269). me

1.1.4.2 On the Rise of the Personal Pronoun Whereas several suggestions have been made concerning the origin of the definite articles, little has been said as to how the personal pronouns originated. As we saw in example (10) above, ille a personal pronoun as a means for indicating the dislocation of the direct object (Vincent 1997: 160 161; 1998: 430). However, this does not account for the rise of ipse as personal pronoun since ille, and not ipse, is used in cases of pronominal resumption according to Vincent. Giusti (2001) assumes a development of the personal pronouns in two steps: demonstrative > strong pronoun and strong pronoun > weak pronoun. Since demonstratives and strong pronouns have the same syntactic structure (see Figure 1 in Section 1.1.1 above or Figure 2 in Section 1.1.4.1), the development from demonstrative to strong pronoun, she argues (Giusti 2001: 168), only involves a morphological reanalysis of an element with the features of a demonstrative into an element with the features of a pronoun. The mechanism responsible for the further development into a weak pronoun is syntactic reanalysis.

1.1.4.3 Ipse p

?

er (1948) with reference to ipse because, in his opinion, to become a definite article ipse had to

and then from demonstrative to definite article. Ille , on the other hand, is a

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17 n-

strative to definite article (Aebischer 1948: 202). Others assume that ipse developed directly from intensifier to definite article (L. Löfstedt 1981: 275; Vincent 1997; 1998). According to Vincent (1997: 155; 1998: 433), the development of ipse took place through its topic marking function. Since definiteness is an intrinsic property of topics, he argues (Vincent 1997: 158), the topic marker ipse was easily transformed into a definite article.

1.1.4.4 Why Ille was Eventually the Preferred Definite Article / Personal Pronoun As we have seen, ille and ipse both occur in Late Latin. In fact, ipse has been found to be even more frequent than ille (e.g. Selig 1992: 133). In light of this, it is a paradox that definite articles and personal pronouns derived from ipse exist only in a minority of the modern Romance varieties. 16 Some hypotheses have been put forward to resolve this paradox. According to Carlier & De Mulder (2010: 262), ipse is more frequent than ille in Late Latin because it conveys a simpler and more precise referential instruction as an anaphoric device than ille does. As we saw in Section 1.1.2, ipse in their view strengthens the anaphoric chain whereas ille creates a discontinuity in the anaphoric chain by introducing a new identification of the referent. Precisely because ille does not require the referent to be strictly identical to an aforementioned one, it is more flexible than ipse. In addition, ille can signal that the identification of the referent is not to be found in the immediately preceding context, but that information outside of this context should be activated in order to identify the referent. In other words, ille is not only anaphoric, but also used in first mentions (Carlier & De Mulder 2010: 262 264). Selig (1992) takes a similar view. Ipsee of its contrastive-emphatic value (Selig 1992: 184). Due to this value, it could only be used in certain contexts. Ille does not have such a contrastive-emphatic value. Ille is moreover a non-proximal p demonstrative that p places the referent : 183) argues, ille is not only a less marked option than ipse, but also less marked than hic and iste, which explicitly place the referent in the vicinity of the interlocutors As the most neutral determiner, then, ille could straightforwardly develop into a definite article. Due to its contrastive-emphatic value and hence its usage

16 Definite articles and personal pronouns derived from ipse are found in Sardinian, Southern Italian and dialects of Catalan, Gascon and Provençal.

18

Introduction

limited to certain contexts, the same generalisation into a definite article was not possible for ipse (Selig 1992: 184185, see Vincent 1997; 1998 for a similar explanation of why ipse could not develop into a clitic object pronoun). Aebischer (1948) accounts for the paradox in another way. As long as a sufficient knowledge of Latin was preserved, one knew that ipse did not mean ille, as he puts it, and they were thus kept apart. Then the article became obligatory. In the areas south of Rome, which had been Romanised very early and intensely, and where Latin was believed to be known, the current, popular form, namely ipse, was retained. In Etruria, in Cisalpine Gaul, in Gaul and in the Iberian peninsula, where Latin had a weaker position, cultivated usage reacted, as it were, and gave ille as definite article, although slowly and partially (Aebischer 1948: 202). In this section, we have seen various hypotheses concerning how the definite articles and personal pronouns developed. The following section presents hypotheses that have been put forward to explain why these changes took place.

1.1.5 Causal Factors behind the Changes of Ille and Ipse Several scholars see the development of the definite articles (and personal pronouns) in relation to word order change and the loss of morphological case marking (Renzi 1992; Nocentini 1990; Rosén 1994; Vincent 1997; 1998). The common opinion is that the rise of articles and pronouns follows the establishment of a fixed word order and the loss of case marking. Renzi (1992), on the contrary, argues that the rise of articles precedes the loss of case marking. To him, the development of articles is a result of the change from O(bject)V(erb) to VO word order. The articles, he states, began as a means for adapting the Latin noun phrases to a VO order according to the Greenbergian universal that VO languages show the order case marker + noun in the noun phrase (Renzi 1992: 165166). When Latin word order changed from OV to VO, he argues (Renzi 1992: 168), the expression of case was transferred from the case suffix to the element preceding the noun i.e. to the demonstrative to fit with the VO order. As a consequence, the old case suffixes lost their importance and eventually disappeared. Another explanation is that adopted by Trager (1932), as well as by Lapesa (1961), Adams (1967) and Epstein (1993; 1994; 1995; 2001) for whom a wish for greater expressivity led to an overuse of demonstratives, which in turn resulted in a weakening of the demonstratives to definite articles.

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The general Vulgar Latin tendency of marking elements analytically and explicitly was the factor leading to the rise of the definite article according to Harris (1980a; 1980b). This general tendency also led to an increasing tendency of explicit definiteness marking (Harris 1980b: 146). Renzi (1976; 1979) discusses the possibility of Greek influence in the development of the definite article in Latin/Romance. The Greek definite article, he points out (Renzi 1976: 36; 1979: 261), is fully developed by the time the definite article starts to appear in Latin, and it functions in some ways that the article in Latin never does. Besides, Latin does not uncritically adopt the Greek usages of the article. Rather, the Latin authors adopt only those Greek usages that were already admitted in Latin (1976: 28; 1979: 260). Therefore, Renzi concludes, Greek influence cannot have been decisive (1976: 36), and we should see the development of the articles rather in relation to other changes, viz. increasing use of prepositions, loss of morphological case marking and development of auxiliaries17 (Renzi 1979: 262). Before concluding this introductory chapter, a summary of the research questions that emerge from my review of the previous literature is in order. That is the subject of the last section.

1.1.6 Research Questions 1.1.6.1 Theoretical Issues

a-

the existing literature, although some exceptions can be found. A precise understanding of these categories is needed to say anything about the referring expressions in Late Latin and the development of ille and ipse. An understanding of the semantics and syntax of these categories, however, is not necessarily required; it is in fact difficult to determine the correct categorical status of ille and ipse based on the semantics or syntax of demonstratives, definite articles and personal pronouns. If, for example, we base our analysis on semantic criteria and assume that the difference between a definite article and a demonstrative is [+demonstrative] vs. [-demonstrative], almost all occurrences of adnominal ille and ipse in the Itinerarium Egeriae are ambiguous. They can be

17 By the term auxiliaries Renzi presumably refers to the new periphrastic verb forms, e.g. habere + perfect participle (expressing present perfect tense) and habere + infinitive (expressing future tense).

20

Introduction

i.e. a demonstra-

tive with a [+demonstrative] feature feature i.e. a definite article. Hence, I take a pragmatic approach to the referring expressions instead, assuming that different referring expressions require different degrees of accessibility (see Section 2.2).

1.1.6.2 The Interrelationship between the Referring Expressions We have furthermore seen that most scholars argue in favour of a division of functions between ille and ipse in Late Latin, or more specifically, in the Itinerarium Egeriae, but that they have also been claimed to be synonymous. There need not be any uncertainty regarding the functions of ille and ipse, however. Their functions can in fact easily be established since there is a limited corpus of examples. There is more agreement regarding the other demonstratives, but I will be examining whether the claims set forth with respect to the other demonstratives hold as well. In addition, as I mentioned in the introduction to this chapter, we cannot study ille and ipse in isolation. I will therefore be concerned with the use of the other referring expressions as well, in particular null pronouns and bare NPs. Where relevant, I will also compare the properties of the referring expressions in the Itinerarium Egeriae with their properties in Classical Latin as shown especially by Bolkestein & van de Grift (1994), Pennell Ross (1996) and Bolkestein (2000).

1.1.6.3 Are Ille and Ipse Definite Articles and Personal Pronouns in the Itinerarium Egeriae ? As already mentioned, no attempt has been made at dating the emergence of the third person personal pronouns. Moreover, there is disagreement as to when ille and ipse became definite articles. The hypotheses y that have been put forapparently, on an assumption that ille/ipse are not definite articles if they are not definite articles in all their occurrences. The fact that ille/ipse are not definite articles (or personal pronouns) in all their occurrences, however, does not necessarily mean they are never definite articles (or personal pronouns).

1.1.6.4 How did Ille/Ipse Become Definite Articles and Personal Pronouns? As we have seen, a hypothesis of the rise of the definite articles (and personal pronouns) adopted by several scholars sees them originating as a means for

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marking the definiteness, syntactic function or discourse status of the noun phrase when the noun phrase is dislocated from the position in which it would normally appear. If the theory is right, I would expect to find ille and ipse frequently used with dislocated elements. Connected with this is the q question as to which syntactic functions ille and ipse most frequently occur in with subjects, objects or perhaps in other functions.

1.1.6.5 The Causes behind the Changes My focus in this study is not on why the definite articles and personal pronouns originated. Nevertheless, having established how the referring expressions, including ille and ipse, are used in fourth century Latin as represented by the Itinerarium Egeriae, as well as how the new uses of ille and ipse possibly emerged, it should be possible to expound the proposed causes behind the changes. In the following chapter, I present the theoretical foundations underyling my study of the Itinerarium Egeriae.

2 Theoretical Foundations In the present chapter, I outline the basic theoretical assumptions underlying the present study. Since the majority of the referring expressions I will be disp j views on definiteness in cussing are definite expressions, I start with the major 2.1). In Section 2.2, I outline the theory of accessibility and the choice of referring expression in discourse, including the interaction between accessibility p . In Section 2.3, I discuss the properties and uses of three major exponents of definiteness, personal pronouns, definite articles and demonstratives. In this section, I also discuss the question as to when a demonstrative has become a definite article and a personal pronoun. Section 2.4 is a discussion of the properties of intensifiers, insofar as ipse was originally an intensifier.18

2.1 Definiteness In this section, I discuss the well-known uniqueness, familiarity, inclusiveness and identifiability hypotheses of definiteness, before I argue in favour of defiy of discourse referents. niteness as the identifiability ac. One is as a universal concept p that exists in all languages, but has different expressio may somehow q p be equated with the use of the definite article (and/or other expressions of defiare concerned primarily with English, though without always making it clear whether they intend to establish a universal concept of definiteness or, more specifically, a theory of definiteness and the use of the definite article in English.19

18 Ipse is indeed often labelled a demonstrative in Latin grammars, but it is more properly an intensifier, which is not used for referent tracking as demonstratives are. 19 Christophersen (1939) is explicitly concerned with the definite article in English, and the same apparently holds true for Russell (1905), Heim (1982) and Hawkins (1978; 1991).

Definiteness

23

As Lambrecht (1994) points out, between the cognitive concept of (non-) identifiability20 and the grammatical expression of (in)definiteness there is no immediate relationship, as shown by the fact that the formal grammatical marking of definiteness varies from language to language, whereas the mental ability to identify referents appears to be universal (Lambrecht 1994: 79 80). In other words, Lambrecht views definiteness as a universal concept, which is the view I take as well. This is not to say, however, that the views of those who are concerned more specifically with the use of the definite article in English do not belong in the discussion of the universal concept of definiteness. The aim of the following sections is to arrive at an understanding of what most discussions of definiteness are based on English, the examples in these sections are English. Having said that, the conclusion I eventually arrive at, a theory of the universal concept of definiteness, is assumed to hold for Latin as well.

2.1.1 Definiteness as Uniqueness The logical analysis of definite reference y and the view on definiteness as (1905) celebrated work. It was uniqueness penned as a response and reaction to Frege (1892). Frege distinguishes between p the Sinn Bedeutung The sense of an expression is the meaning of an expression whatever the object to which it rej y the expression. p fers. In contrast, reference is the object denoted by We can illusing star . Both expressions refer to the same object, namely the planet Venus. Thus, according to Frege, these expressions have the same reference. Since the expressions denote Venus in respect of its different properties, however, they have different sense. Referring expressions presuppose a reference to something, and the presupposition must be true for the sentence to be true or false. As Russell (1905) observes, an expression may refer either to a specific oby e denoting, and yet not denote anyject (the present king of Norway 21 thing , as he puts it (the king of France, since there exists no king of France); or it may refer ambiguously (a man) (Russell 1905: 479).

20 I.e. (in)definiteness in his view, see Section 2.1.4 below. 21 This is contradictory and confusing. What Russell means is simply that an expression may have no (real-world) referent at all.

24

Theoretical Foundations

Russell, a definite description does not presuppose reference, and it is not a y definite descriptions p claim about an individual. In this way, are similar to quanfinite expression such as (15), in fact, expresses a conjunction of three propositions, as shown in (16): (15) (16)

The king of France is bald. 1. There is a king of France (existence) 2. There is only one King of France (uniqueness) 3. This individual is bald (predication)

Formally, y the sentence in (15) can be represented as in (17)

(17)

‫׌‬x[KoF(x) ‫׊ ר‬

‫ ר‬bald(x)]

These three truth conditions must all be met for the sentence to be true. If one of the propositions is false, the entire conjunction is false. If, then, someone uttered this sentence today, it would be false since there exists no king of France. If there were two kings of France, the uniqueness condition would not be met and the sentence would likewise be false. Finally, the sentence would be false if one and only one king of France did in fact exist, but this individual were not bald. Importantly, the uniqueness condition is what distinguishes definite descriptions from indefinite ones. In his famous response to Russell, Strawson (1950) took him to task on several points; the Russell Strawson debate is still much discussed. I will not, however, detail its particulars here. Suffice it to note that whereas the definite p article o The definite article, according to Strawson, implies, or presupposes, that the speaker intends to speak about a particular individual. There is an important difference between assertion and presupposition. If something is presupposed, it is assumed to belong to the common knowledge of the interlocutors. What is asserted, on the other hand, does not belong to the common knowledge. Simplified, we can say that presuppositions are old information, whereas assertions are new information. To Strawson, the definite article presupposes the existence of a unique q individual to whom reference is made, but it does not assert it, as it

Definiteness

25

2.1.2 Definiteness as Familiarity We have seen that definiteness to Russell is uniqueness. Another important tradition concerning the nature of definiteness is the one following Christophersen (1939), who views definiteness as familiarity. A condition for the use of the definite article, according to Christophersen, is that there is a basis of understanding between speaker and hearer. The use of the definite article requires the referent to be familiar not only to the speaker, but also to the adNow the speaker must always be supposed to know which individual dres he is thinking of; the interesting thing is that the the-form supposes that the Familiarityy implies that the potential meaning of a word which it can be inferred that only one definite individual is meant (Christophersen 1939: 72). Importantly, an association with previously acquired knowledge is enough for the referent to be familiar. This formulation implies that no knowledge of the specific referent in question is required, only knowledge of something with which the referent can be associated. Thus, the familiarity may be indirect and very slight. For instance, the mention of a book is enough, Christophersen points out, to continue with the author (indirect/associative anaphora) (Christophersen 1939: 73): (18)

I read a book and decided to write to the author.

2.1.2.1 Heim (1982) gives a formal semantic account of (in)definiteness, and as such, her work differs in many respects from that of Christophersen. I discuss it here since Heim, like Christophersen, also argues in favour of definiteness as familiarity. y to refer to the information built up in the course of discourse. File cards are discourse referents in the sense of Karttunen (1976). The idea is that when a new referent is introduced, a new card is added to the file, and every time the referent is mentioned again, the card is updated with the new information.22

22 Discourse Representation Theory introduced by Kamp (1981) shares many of its ideas with Heim s File change semantics.

26

Theoretical Foundations

basis of examples like the following: (19)

on the

[In a store which sells sage plants not individually, but only by flats of nine] Everybody who bought a sage plant here bought eight others along with it. (from Heim 1982: 89)

It has unique reference if it is interpreted as picking out one particular sage plant per buyer. p p y But for (19) to be true, Heim argues, it is not necessary y to fix holds for (20): (20)

Every man who owns a donkey owns a second one to keep it company. (from Heim 1982: 89)

Heim, then, adopts the view on definiteness as familiarity instead. In her file change semantics, definite NPs must be familiar, and a noun phrase is familiar if it is co-indexed with a noun phrase that precedes it, that is, with an already existing file card. Conversely, indefinite noun phrases must be novel. To be novel, the noun phrase must not be co-indexed with any preceding noun phrase (Heim 1982: 300). 1939) for not taking referentiality into account as if all noun phrases were referential, which they are not. Consider the following examples: (21) (22)

Bill wants a new car. It should be blue. Every farmer who owns a donkey, beats it.

In both (21) and (22), the underlined noun phrases do not refer to a specific entity in the real world. Rather, reference is to whatever item satisfies the description. (21) and (22) also illustrate the fact that non-referential noun phrases, like referential ones, can be both indefinite and definite; a new car and a donkey y are indefinite, whereas it is definite. the noun phrases refer to a real-world entity, however, one leaves the definitep ness contrast in non-referential noun phrases unaccounted for (Heim 1982: 299). , are not real-world referents. Discourse reference is an abstract and purely formal concept, and it is the file cards that are familiar or novel, not real-world referents.

Definiteness

27

By keeping the file cards apart from real-world referents, Heim is able to account for the definiteness contrast in non-referential NPs. yp of NPs are problematic for the familiHeim acknowledges that certain types beware of the dog g uarity ation uses the sun is shining g anaphora (I read a book and decided to write to the author) (Heim 1982: 370 371). Heim opts for a mechanism of accommodation to account for immediate and larger situation uses and associative anaphora. The idea behind accommodation is that the addressee is willp a definite description p ing to accept if he is able to figure out the intended referfelicity condition and consists of adding to the file enough information to remedy the infelicity (Heim 1982: 372).

2.1.3 Definiteness as Inclusiveness Hawkins (1978) defines definiteness in terms of speech act theory. According to Hawkins (1978), the speaker performs the following speech acts when using the definite article: He (a) introduces a referent (or referents) to the hearer; and (b) instructs the hearer to los to the totality of the object or mass within this set which satisfy the referring expression. (Hawkins 1978: 167)

is a set of objects available to speaker and hearer to which definite expressions can refer. The set is ation of utterance (Hawkins 1978: 130). As stated in (c), the reference of a definite expression is to the totality of the objects, i.e. all the objects, which satisfy the expression. To Hawkins (1978), the definite article is a universal quantifier. It refers to all the objects or all the mass in the pragmatically limited domain of quantification, whereas the sentence as a whole makes some claim about these objects. This property of the definite article is referred to as inclusiveness.23 The Russelli-

23 Inclusiveness is central to the accounts by e.g. Declerck (1986) and Chesterman (1991) as well.

28

Theoretical Foundations

an uniqueness, according to Hawkins, is not a property of definite expressions. Uniqueness only follows from the fact that with singular nouns the totality amounts to one object only (Hawkins 1978: 160). We find a modified view in Hawkins (1991). Here, he is concerned with singular noun phrases only. Without abandoning the inclusiveness generalisation, he modifies his view that uniqueness is not a property of definite expressions. In fact, the definite article entails existence and uniqueness, uniqueness being extendable to plural NPs. is not p properly p defined. In Hawkins (1991) is -set , and is defined in terms of Sperber and Wilson (1995) eness in a P-set is conversationally implicated by the definite article. Hawkins (1991) points out that the P-set should always be manifest in actual language use, but not necessarily known in advance. Thus, he is able to account for immediate situation uses, but also, for example, larger situation uses and associative anaphora, where there is no prior mutual knowledge. In his earlier work, this was only possible in immediate situation uses.

2.1.4 Definiteness as Identifiability The final major view on definiteness in the literature is the identifiability view. Identifiability is not very different from familiarity, but there are certain examples that cannot be accounted for in terms of familiarity, for instance the following: (23)

Yesterday I met the love of my life.

Depending on the situation, the love of my life may of course be familiar to the addressee. Yet the crucial point is that she need not be; the definite expression is felicitous even though the addressee has never heard of this person and does not know who she is. In this case, familiarity cannot account for the definite description. Lyons (1999) states the difference between familiarity and identifip y account the tells the hearer that he knows which, on the identifiability account it tells him that he knows which or can work out which (Lyons 1999: 6). To Lambrecht (1994), the formal grammatical distinction many languages make between definite and indefinite noun phrases, correlates with the cogni-

Definiteness

29

tive distinction between identifiable and unidentifiable referents.24 A referent is

d (Lambrecht 1994: 77 78). More specifically, identifiability of a referent can be established in one of the following ways (Lambrecht 1994: 87): – The referent is unique because in the universe of discourse there is only one referent which can be designated by the noun phrase in question ( the sun, the president of the United States, John, mom). This includes generics, whether definite or indefinite. – The referent is identifiable because of its salient status in the pragmatic universe of the speaker and the hearer (NPs like the kids, the car, the cleaning lady as used e.g. by members of a family) – The referent is identifiable by deictic or anaphoric reference. This includes inalienable possession (my left arm) and referents otherwise anchored in the individuality of one of the interlocutors ( -husband).

unites all instances of identifiability and justifies expression by a single grammatical category is the existence of a cognitive frame within which a referent can be identified. As defined by Fillmore (1982: 111, cited in Lambrecht 1994: 90), a frame is a system of concepts organised in such a way that to understand one of them, you have to understand the whole structure in which it fits. When one of the things in such a structure is introduced, all of the others are automatically made available.

2.1.4.1 Lyons (1999): The Grammaticalisation of Identifiability Like Lambrecht (1994), who draws a distinction between cognitive identifiability and the grammatical expression of definiteness, Lyons (1999) distinguishes between the pragmatic concept of identifiability, which is assumed to be present in all languages, and grammatical definiteness, the formal marking of definiteness, which may be lacking. Identifiability means that the hearer is in a position to identify the referent of the noun phrase in question.

24 Definiteness is viewed as identifiability also by Givón (1978) and Gundel et al. (1993; 2001).

30

Theoretical Foundations

Lyons y differs from other scholars in assuming that definiteness, strictly y ely grammatical category. It is clear, however, that definiteness as conceptualised by Lyons is based on identifiability. In fact, he sees definiteness as the grammaticalisation of identifiability (Lyons 1999: 278). Like Lambrecht (1994), Lyons acknowledges that there is no exact correspondence between identifiability and (grammatical) definiteness. First, there are uses of definiteness where identifiability does not fit. Lyons accounts for this in the following way: when identifiability comes to be grammaticalised as definiteness, this category will go on to develop other uses, uses which do not necessarily have anything to do with identifiability (Lyons 1999: 278). Conversely, there may be some instances of identifiability that are not treated as definite in a given language (e.g., generics in English are identifiable, but not always marked as definite). Nevertheless, Lyons states (1999: 278), there is always a large central core of uses of definiteness relatable directly to identifiability.

2.1.5 Evaluation of the Proposals: Definiteness as the Identifiability of Discourse Referents So far, we have seen that scholars seek to describe definiteness mainly in terms of uniqueness, familiarity, inclusiveness or identifiability. Most of these theories are not devoid of problems, however. Is it possible to describe definiteness accurately by appealing to one of these notions? Christophersen (1939) and Heim (1982) argue in favour of familiarity (see Section 2.1.2). However, many definite noun phrases are difficult to account for in terms of familiarity. Examples are immediate situation uses like (24), associative/inferable uses like (25) and noun phrases with an establishing relative clause25 like (26): (24) (25) (26)

Beware of the dog! I took the bus and asked the driver to please let me know where to get off. The woman Bill went out with last night

The referent of the noun phrase in these examples is not familiar to the hearer. It can be, but it need not be, and these sentences work perfectly well in situa-

25 Establishing relative clauses establish a referent for the hearer without the need for previous mention (Hawkins 1978: 131).

Definiteness

31

tions where the addressee is not familiar with the referent. An association with another referent, Christophersen (1939) assumes, is enough for the referent to be familiar. This might work in associative uses like (25), if we assume that all the referents associated with a familiar referent are automatically familiar as well. In (24) and (26) it is somewhat far-fetched to argue that the referent is fap miliar. One could argue with respect to (24) that there is an association with the ntain dogs ), the house possibly being familiar to the addressee. In (26), it is in principle possible to see the woman as associated with Bill, with whom the addressee appears to be familiar. However, the familiarity becomes very slight in these examples, and one should opt for a theory that captures these uses more straightforwardly. As we saw above (in Section 2.1.2.1), Heim accounts for uses like (24)-(26) by assuming a mechanism of accommodation. But again, if another theory of definiteness can account for these uses in a more straightforward manner, without us having to hypothesise a special mechanism, this theory is preferable. y As Hawkins (1978), Heim (1982) and Lyons (1999) observe, uniqueness can (19) and (20) above are problematic for a uniqueness account. Also plural noun phrases and mass nouns can hardly be accounted for in terms of uniqueness: (27)

e out the prizes. (cited in Lyons 1999: 10)

As pointed out by Lyons (1999: 11), one could argue that uniqueness in such cases still applies, but to a set rather than to an individual. He rejects this view, however, stating that the set of the three prizes is not unique in the context since there is also a set consisting of the first and second prize, the second and third prizes, and so on (Lyons 1999: 11). Whether uniqueness works here dep q pends on how one defines uniqueness: whether subsets such as that consisting so that they render the reference nonunique. In my opinion, it is not necessarily obvious that reference cannot be unique here. Nevertheless, uniqueness is certainly not unproblematic. As evidence against inclusiveness, Lyons cites among others the following example: (28)

[In a room with three doors, one of which is open] Close the door, please. (from Lyons 1999: 14)

32 (29)

Theoretical Foundations

[In a hallway where all four doors are closed. The speaker is dressed in coat and hat, and has a suitcase in each hand] Open the door for me, please. (from Lyons 1999: 14)

The definition of inclusiveness is that reference is to all the objects in the context that satisfy the description. This is clearly not the case in these examples. There are three, respectively four, doors in the context, but reference is to only one of them. In (28), one may argue that the noun phrase refers inclusively to all the open doors in the context, which is only one. Likewise, in (29), it is clear from the situation that the reference is to the front door, and of front doors there is presumably only one. In this way, the noun phrase refers inclusively to all the front doors in the context. Although it seems possible to argue in favour of definite noun phrases being inclusive, inclusiveness often does not work with demonstrative noun phrases, which are also normally assumed to be definite. Consider the following example: (30)

[Pointing at one of several books in a book shelf] Give me that book, please.

Like in (28) and (29), the reference here is not to all the objects that satisfy the description. Note, however, that utterances like that in (30) are normally accompanied by a pointing gesture or some other gesture indicating which book is meant. One may in fact argue that such a gesture is actually part of the demonstrative description, and that the sentence is ungrammatical without it. If the gesture is assumed to be part of the demonstrative description, there is in fact only one object that satisfies the description, and that book does refer inclusively to all the objects that satisfy the description. I leave this discussion for further research and assume for the moment that inclusiveness cannot easily account for examples like (30). It follows from this that demonstratives are either not definite or definiteness is not inclusiveness. Synchronically, demonstratives and definite articles have partly overlapping functions (see Section 2.3 below); they are both used anaphorically, for instance. Diachronically, definite articles often arise from demonstratives. These facts indicate that demonstratives and definite articles are in some way connected, and that they share one or more properties that allow them to be used in the same functions and for the one to develop from the other. Definite articles and demonstratives in fact share the property of signalling an entity

Definiteness

33

which is either known to the addressee in advance or whose identity is possible to figure out, i.e. definiteness. Lyons (1999), however, working within a Chomy framework, argues that demonstratives are not [+DEFINITE] and that their skyan iarticles are [+DEFINITE sition D and its projection DP that are definite, not the elements occupying the D position. Demonstratives, he suggests, are constrained to occur only in definite NPs y incompatible p merelyy byy the fact that theyy are semantically with indefiniteness atives are incompatible with indefiniteness without being definite. Possibly, the incompatibility p y with indefiniteness follows from their demonstrative feature (i.e. intuitively is not indefinite. In this way, demonstratives can in fact be incompatible with indefiniteness without necessarily being [+DEFINITE]. Yet, as Lyons points out, there is an association of demonstratives with definiteness in that they either occupy the D position, which is definiteness according to Lyons, or they are y accompanied p y the definite article (cf. Spanish p el hombre aquel q , lit. obligatorily by atives are not definite. On the other hand, if they are not definite, why are they associated with definiteness? Incompatibility with indefiniteness does not necessarily imply an association with definiteness, through the D position or through an accompanying definite article. In any case, whether definiteness is seen as a feature of the demonstrative itself or as a result of the structural position of the demonstrative, as noted above, demonstrative noun phrases are definite, and should also be accounted for by a theory of definiteness. It is thus preferable to reject inclusiveness as a theory of definiteness rather than rejecting the definiteness of demonstratives. Note that the reference is not unique in (30) either: such noun phrases are also evidence against a uniqueness account of definiteness. Identifiability appears to be what can best describe definiteness. Examples (24) to (30) above, which are problematic for uniqueness, familiarity, or inclusiveness, can all be accounted for by identifiability. Lyons (1999: 9) argues against an identifiability account of definite noun phrases in future and hypothetical contexts, as in the following examples: (31)

The winner of this competition will get a week in Bahamas for two. (from Lyons 1999: 9)

34 (32)

Theoretical Foundations

The man who comes with me will not regret it.

(from Lyons 1999: 9)

These examples are non-referential, or non-specific. Reference is not to a pary satisfies the description; the noun ticular individual, but to whatever entity in (1982) terminology, y from real-world referents, we can uphold p the view , it is possible to identify a file card with the title the winner of this competition in (31) and a card with the title the man who comes with me in (32), even though we do not know who the real-world referents of these expressions are. Instead of the trents identifiability of discourse referents. Identifiability has the advantage of accounting for both familiar, unique and inclusive uses of definite expressions if the discourse referent of a noun phrase is familiar, unique or inclusive, it is also identifiable as well as for instances the other three approaches are not able to account for. Examples like (28) and (29) above, however, may be viewed as problematic for the account of definiteness as the identifiability of discourse referents. In (28) and (29), the definite descriptions can in fact be straightforwardly accounted for as identifiability of real-world referents. I want, however, a unified account, and as we have seen, there are cases in which definiteness can only be characterised in terms of identifiability of discourse referents. It is, therefore, desirable to account also for examples like (28) and (29) in terms of identifiability of discourse referents, but how does the door in (28) and (29) become a discourse referent? As I explained above (in Section 2.1.2.1), Heim (1982), in her file change semantics, opts for a mechanism of accommodation in order to account for examples like (28) and (29). This mechanism, however, is adopted to fit these kinds of non-familiar definite descriptions into the familiarity hypothesis. Accommodation is not necessary in order to account for (28) and (29) on an identifiability account. In fact, Heim does not discuss the question as to how a real-world referent becomes a card in the file that is, a discourse referent. Implicit in her work, however, is that a real-world referent becomes a file card once it is mentioned in the discourse. To Karttunen (1976), a discourse referent is established if it is possible to refer back to it by a co-referential pronoun or definite noun phrase later in the discourse. This too seems to imply that a real-world referent, if a discourse referent is in fact established, becomes a discourse referent merely

Accessibility and the Choice of Referring Expression

35

by being introduced into the discourse. That is, in (28) and (29), for instance, by its being mentioned, the door becomes a discourse referent. If the discourse referent has a corresponding real-world referent which it indeed have in (28) and (29)26 the discourse referent is identifiable if the corresponding real-world referent is. Conversely, if the real-world referent is not identifiable, the discourse referent is not identifiable either. If there is no corresponding real-world referent, it is the discourse referent itself that is identifiable or not. In the follow27

ifiability of discourse referents. Although the definite/indefinite distinction influences the choice of referring expression in discourse, this is not all there is to it. There are several exponents of (in) definiteness in a language. Definite articles, personal pronouns and demonstratives, for instance, are all exponents of definiteness. I assume that the choice of referring expression is determined by the accessibility of the referent (as well as some other variables not directly relevant to accessibility). In the following section, I outline the theory of accessibility and the choice of referring expression in discourse.

2.2 Accessibility and the Choice of Referring Expression may y refer to different concepts. p Keenan and Comrie (1977) nguistic item to undergo a certain grammatical process, namely relativisation (cf. y is a Section 2.2.1.6). To Ariel (1988; 1990; 1991), on the other hand, accessibility y y ppsychological and memoryin the latter sense. From different perspectives several scholars are concerned with the choice of referring expression in discourse (inter alia Isard, 1975; Linde 1979; Sidner 1983; Li & Thompson 1979; Givón 1983; Grosz et al 1983; Fox 1987; Sanford & Garrod 1981; Bosch 1983; Gundel et al. 1993; Ariel 1990). The approaches and the expressions investigated vary, but the basic assumption is that the choice of

26 Cases in which no real-world referent exists are examples like (21), (22), (31) and (32). 27 When I speak of referents that are present in the immediate (discourse) situation, it is of course the real-world referent that is present in the situation. Nevertheless, there is a discourse referent corresponding to the real-world referent in these cases too, as argued for (28) and (29).

36

Theoretical Foundations

referring expression, or more specifically, the choice of anaphoric expression, is somehow governed by the accessibility of the intended referent. Based on the above-mentioned works, the basic theoretical assumption of y is that the accessibilityy of the referent is what determines the the p present study s adopted from Ariel (1988; 1990; 1991), we will not only make use of her assumptions and claims as to what determines the accessibility of a referent, but just as much of insights from other works on referential choice in discourse. In addition to accessibility, there are certain other variables that are not strictly speaking accessibility determining, but that may nevertheless influence the choice of referring expression. In the following I survey the variables that are thought to influence accessibility and hence the choice of referring expression (Section 2.2.1), as well as some other variables that may influence this y accessibility y determining (Section 2.2.2), before I choice without being (directly) (Section 2.2.4).

2.2.1 The Variables Determining Accessibility 2.2.1.1 Givenness Status First, the givenness status of a referent correlates with accessibility or, more precisely, we should say that givenness status reflects accessibility. That is, accessibilityy is a speaker-oriented notion in the sense that it has to do with the sumptions about the mental status of the referent in the memory of the addressee. Givenness status, on the other hand, is hearer based; it encodes how the addressee determines the reference of the noun p phrase. There is nevertheless a correlation between th the reference of the noun phrase. Givenness status and accessibility are two different, but related, concepts. Ariel (1990) too, takes a similar view. She shows that there is no one-to-one relationship between givenness status as defined in terms of contexts (see the next paragraph) and referring expression. She therefore argues in favour of replacing givenness by accessibility as the principal factor determining the choice of referring expression in discourse, yet recognising that accessibility is dependent on givenness status insofar as the various degrees of accessibility are not arbitrarily related to context-types (Ariel 1990: 5 11).

Accessibility and the Choice of Referring Expression

37

Ariel (1990) defines givenness in terms of contexts.28 -new referents are retrieved either from general/encyclopaedic knowledge, from the p y physical context or from the linguistic context. The following ranking of these

Most accessible

Linguistic context Physical context Encyclopaedic context

Least accessible

Figure 1: Accessibility ranking of givenness statuses in Ariel (1990)

The approach of Gundel et al. (1993) to givenness is not context-based. Rather, they define givenness in terms of cognitive activation states. The Givenness hierarchy as given in Gundel et al. (1993: 275) is as follows: In > focus

Activated

>

Familiar

>

Uniquely identifiable

> Referential >

Type identifiable

Figure 2: The Givenness hierarchy of Gundel et al. (1993)

The degree of accessibility or cognitive activation in Gundel et terms decreases from left to right. The definitions of the cognitive statuses are p in short-term memory as follows. When a referent is in focus, it is represented . The cognitive status activated means that the referent is represented in short-term memory, but is not at the current centre of attention. Both activated referents and referents in focus are previously mentioned in the discourse. A referent that is familiar is represented in memory. According to Gundel et al. (1993: 278) the representation is y However, if the referent is either in short-term memoryy or in long-term memory. p lpresent in shortth representation in long-term memory, y if a distinction between a cognitive status familiar referents belong to the general (world) knowledge of the addressee or the shared knowledge of speaker and hearer. When the referent is uniquely y identifiablee

28 That is, a DRT-like view on givenness, see Section 3.1.3.1 below.

38

Theoretical Foundations

of the nominal alone. Referential means that the speaker intends to refer to a particular object or objects. The addressee must either retrieve an existing representation of the referent or construct a new representation of it. 29 Finally, the status type identifiable signals that the addressee is able to access a representation of the type of object described by the expression.30 In sum, it follows from Ariel (1990) as well as from Gundel et al. (1993) that the givenness status of the referent influences accessibility. Moreover, as Ariel (1990) shows, the degree of accessibility varies within each givenness status category as well. This holds true especially for the referents that are mentioned previously in the discourse, as is reflected also in the fact that Gundel et al. (1993) distinguish two groups of previously mentioned referents, namely referents in focus, and referents that are activated. The accessibility determining variables I discuss in the remaining part of this section apply to previously mentioned referents.

2.2.1.2 Distance to the Antecedent Scholars have observed that the distance to the antecedent affects the accessibility of a referent. Givón (1983), for instance, notices the importance of distance as a factor affecting topic availability. Similarly, Beaver (2004: 26) assumes that distance is a constraint to which possible topics are sensitive; the longer distance to the antecedent, the less likely a referent is to be a topic. Givón and Beaver are concerned with the possibility of a referent being a topic. Since topics are a special type of highly accessible referents, it nevertheless follows that distance is a factor which is relevant for the accessibility of a referent, and I believe antecedent distance is not only relevant for topic availability, but for the choice of anaphoric expression in general. Chafe (1976; 1994), for instance, points out that the longer time from the last mention of a referent, the more information the addressee need to retrieve the intended referent. That is, the longer the distance to the antecedent, the less accessible the intended referent is, and the more informative anaphoric expression we can expect. In the same vein, Garrod & Sanford (1982: 33) point out that

29 This cognitive status seems rather restricted. Gundel et al. (1993) assume that indefinite this in English requires this status (as in I saw this guy yesterday he was like so alpha, he looked like a football player, kinda 6 4 and like really big but toned (extract from a web forum post)). 30 The indefinite article in english requires the cognitive status uniquely identifiable, see below in 2.2.3)

Accessibility and the Choice of Referring Expression

39

pronouns tend to show antecedents that are recently mentioned, that is, highly accessible. Ariel (1990) identifies several variables determining the accessibility of a referent and hence the choice of referring expression, but focuses on the distance to the antecedent in number of sentences as the main variable influencing accessibility. More specifically, she shows that when the antecedent is in the same sentence, the anaphoric expression chosen is most frequently a pronoun. Demonstratives and definite NPs are rarely chosen. Antecedents in the previous sentence too prefer pronoun anaphors. Further away in the same paragraph, definite NPs and pronouns are almost equally frequent. If the antecedent is not in the same paragraph, a definite NP is preferred (Ariel 1990: 19).

2.2.1.3 Antecedent within the Current Frame/Sequence/Paragraph? Another variable but related to distance that has been shown to be relevant to the choice of anaphoric expression is whether or not the antecedent is within the same scenery/frame/sequence/paragraph. The terminology varies, but the idea is the same, namely that a discourse consists of minor units and that the choice of anaphoric expression is sensitive to the boundaries between these units. As already mentioned, Ariel (1990: 19) finds that the choice of expressions depends on whether the antecedent is inside or utside the current paragraph. Sanford & Garrod (1981) show that change of scenery or frame affects the state of the working memory and is crucial, especially for high accessibility markers. That is to say, high accessibility markers i.e. pronouns (see Section 2.2.3 below) refer to entities within the current scenery or frame, and rarely to entities outside the current scenery/frame. Similarly, Fox (1987) argues that the choice between a full NP anaphor and a pronominal anaphor is determined by the presence or absence of an antecedent within the same sequence. , or Itinerarium Egeriae, is the chapter boundary. Each chapter in the Itinerarium Egeriae consists of one paragraph, the chapters are short, and generally contain a single series of connected and interrelated events. As we have seen, Ariel (1990) shows that paragraph boundaries play a role for the choice of expression. A chapter and a sequence/frame might not always correspond exactly. I nevertheless believe chapter boundaries to be good indicators of change in sequence/frame. Moreover, chapter boundaries are marked in my electronic corpus, allowing the automatic retrieval of information on whether the antecedent is inside or out-

40

Theoretical Foundations

side the current chapter. In addition to chapters, the sections (subchapters) in the Itinerarium Egeriae, too, constitute minor sequences to whose boundaries the anaphoric expressions may be sensitive. Accordingly, I will examine the anaphoric expressions with respect to both chapters and sections.

2.2.1.4 Animacy Animacy is relevant for various grammatical phenomena. 31 Animacy categories are commonly organised in hierarchies, where humans can be said to be more accessible than other referents. A common representation of the animacy hierarchy is one based on the tripartite distinction between HUMAN, ANIMATE and INANIMATE, which, as far as I know, goes back to Silverstein (1976): (33)

HUMAN > ANIMATE > INANIMATE

As regards the choice of referring expression, Dahl and Fraurud (1996) show, on the basis of written Swedish corpus data, that animacy is a strong determinant for the choice between pronominal forms and full NPs. In particular, they show that HUMAN and non-HUMAN referents behave differently with respect to pronominalisation; humans are more likely to be pronominalised than non-humans. Finer-grained animacy categories than the tripartition shown in (33) can be identified. The animacy annotation in the electronic corpus I used for the present study is based on such a finer-grained distinction (more on this in Section 3.1.4 below).

2.2.1.5 Antecedent Topicality As Ariel (1990: 22 23) points out, (mainly discourse topics) constitute the most salient [i.e. accessible] entities more often than not In fact, topical antecedents, she states, are more accessible than non-topical ones regardless of the distance to the antecedent (Ariel 1990: 23 24). Gundel et al. (1993) too, assume that topical referents are highly accessible. To them, the topic of the preceding utterance, as well as any still-relevant, higheri.e. on top of the givenness hierarchy (Gundel et al. 1993: 279). Antecedent topicality seems to be particularly relevant to the difference between pronouns and full NPs. A number of studies have shown either that top-

31 See e.g. Comrie (1981: 181 187) for an overview of phenomena controlled by animacy crosslinguistically.

Accessibility and the Choice of Referring Expression

41

ics32 are preferably picked up by pronouns, or vice versa, that pronouns typically refers to the current topic of discourse (inter alia Purkiss 1978; Linde 1979; Sanford & Garrod 1981; Grosz et al. 1983; 1995; Sidner 1983; Gundel et al. 1993). These findings also imply that a non-topical referent is more likely to be picked up by a full NP than by a pronominal form. Since there is good reason to assume that antecedent topicality influences y of a referent, it is important p the accessibility to have a clear understanding of definitions in the literature: Strawson (1964) defines the topic of an utterance as (Strawson 1964: 104). Similarly, to Reinhart (1981: 5) the topic ion whose referent the sentence is about . Gundel (1985), Beaver (2004) y of Grosz et al. (1995). the Centering Theory

find an adequate definition of topic in Lambrecht (1994):

-looking centre in

aboutness topic. .33 We

TOPIC: A referent is interpreted as the topic of a proposition if in a given situation the prop-

osition is construed as being about the referent, i.e. as expressing information which is releva (Lambrecht 1994: 131)

It is often difficult to determine what the topic of a sentence is. In trying to identify the topic, several aspects of the noun phrase are relevant. First, givenness status interacts with topicality. As Lambrecht (1994: 164 165) and Krifka & Musan (2012: 28) correctly point out, there is no one-to-one relationship between old information and topic. Nevertheless, topics must have a degree of pragmatic accessibility, and sentences with insufficiently accessible topics tend to be illformed (Lambrecht 1994: 160 165). According to the topic acceptability scale of

32 The terminology varies greatly here. Grosz et al. (1983; 1995) speak of centre , Linde (1979) of focus of attention , Gundel et al. (1993) of referents in focus , Chafe (1972) of foregrounded entities, Sidner (1983) of focus , Sanford & Garrod (1981) of topic . All these terms refer more or less to the same thing, namely the referent which is (or is assumed by the speaker to be) currently the most highly activated one in the addressee s memory. 33 For simplicity I will henceforth use the term topic to refer to aboutness topics.

42

Theoretical Foundations

Lambrecht (1994: 165), the more easily accessible a referent is, the more acceptable it is as the topic of the sentence:34 Active35 Accessible36 Unused37 Brand-new anchored

most acceptable

least acceptable

Figure 3: The topic acceptability scale of Lambrecht (1994: 165)

Active referents are the preferred topics. An active referent is usually realised as an unaccented pronominal form (Lambrecht 1994: 165). Accessible referents are also frequently occurring topics. Unused referents, on the other hand, can be y and brand-new referents are unacceptable p p topics only with difficulty, as topics, Lambrecht states (1994: (see footnote 35), Lambrecht is indeed right that brand-new referents are infrequent topics. In addition to givenness status, word order interacts with topicality. Traditionally, topics have been associated with the initial position of the sentence (Lambrecht 1994: 117, 199 with references). Even though there is good reason to mbrecht 1994: 199 205), it accounts for the most general case of topic placement, and we should therefore consider word order when trying to identify topics. Syntactic function is also relevant for identifying the topic of a sentence. There is cross-linguistically a strong correlation between the syntactic function subject and topic (Lambrecht 1994: 131 132). Yet it is important to keep in mind that we cannot equate topic with subject; topics are found in other syntactic functions as well. Finally, animacy is shown to have importance for the likeli-

opic acceptability is not a 34 good term because all referents are acceptable as topics. However, some are more frequent as topics, or more likely to be topics, than others. 35 Referents that are currently active in the discourse in focus in Gundel et al. s (1993) terminology. 36 Referents that have been active earlier in the discourse or are inferable from some other active or accessible referent. familiar in Gundel et 37 Referents that are present in the addressee"s long-term memory al. s (1993) terminology.

Accessibility and the Choice of Referring Expression

43

ness of a referent to be a topic. The higher the referent is on the animacy hierarchy, the more likely it is to be a topic (Comrie 1981: 191; Croft, 2003: 178). Since it is difficult to identify the topic of a sentence, for the present study, topics were identified automatically by a program that uses these (and other) variables, more on which will be said in Section 3.1.3. at a sentence is about, and topics are highly accessible. There is apparently a chicken/egg problem here: are topics highly accessible because they are topics, or are they topics because they are highly accessible? A solution to this problem is not decisive for my study, however. Besides, one might argue that topicality and accessibility are just two sides of the same coin, one implying the other, without any causality or directionality. Hence, I do not discuss this problem any further. As we saw above, we can use certain variables to identify the topic of a sentence. Several of these variables are the same that determine accessibility. This follows naturally from the fact that topics are highly accessible referents. In using these variables to identify topics, however, one may get the impression that a referent becomes a topic through showing certain characteristics. We must be aware, however, that these variables are not what make a referent a topic. Rather, it is the other way around: the variables are used to determine what is already a topic, on the assumption that topics tend to show certain properties.

2.2.1.6 Syntactic Function of the Antecedent The syntactic function of the antecedent has been thought to play a role for the accessibility of a referent and hence for the choice of anaphoric expression. Since Keenan & Comrie (1977), it is commonly assumed that there is a hierarchy of syntactic functions, where certain functions are more accessible 38 than others: (34)

SU > DO > IO > OBL > GEN > OCOMP39

(Keenan & Comrie 1977: 66)

38 As mentioned in the introduction to Section 2.2, Keenan and Comrie use accessibility y in a different sense than I do. 39 SU = subject, DO = direct object, IO = indirect object, OBL = major oblique case NP , i.e. arguments of verbs that are not direct or indirect objects, GEN = genitive, OCOMP = object of comparison.

44

Theoretical Foundations

Although the hierarchy was originally formulated with reference to the accessibility y of noun phrases for relativisation, as pointed out by y Keenan and Comrie rmining the accessibility of noun phrases as candidates and targets for syntactic processes (Keenan & Comrie 1977: 96). In fact, we can see the hierarchy as a grammaticalisation of my psychological notion of accessibility. Furthermore, y of Keenan & Comrie indeed correlates with Ariel assumes that the hierarchy tmemoryly associated with various Accessibility rates should, I believe, be accounted for by the Keenan-Comrie NP Accessibility hierarchy, thus motivating the correlation between topics and subjects, etc. (Ariel 1990: 225). Givón (1983) gives a simplified hierarchy of syntactic functions, distinguishing only between subjects, direct objects and other functions:

(35)

SUBJ > DO > OTHERS

(Givón 1983: 22)

In other words, subjects are assumed to be more accessible than objects, and objects in turn are more accessible than antecedents in other syntactic functions. In general, I will restrict myself to the three-way distinction as given in Givón (1983). On differences in accessibility between different syntactic functions see also Chafe (1976), Brennan et al. (1987), Crawley & Stevenson (1990), Halmari (1996), Kaiser (2000) inter alia. As regards syntactic function of the antecedent as an accessibilitydetermining factor, note that it is not obvious that it is the syntactic function per se that determines the accessibility. Rather, it is possible to imagine the low accessibility of objects as compared to subjects, for instance, as a result of objects being less central referents in discourse not because they are objects, but because objects are typically new referents, for instance. I will not pursue the possible epiphenomenal status of syntactic function here, however. In either case, whether syntactic function as an accessibility-determining factor is a primary concept or it merely reflects other properties, it remains the case that referents in certain syntactic functions are less accessible than others.

2.2.1.7 Form of the Antecedent A further variable that may influence accessibility is the form with which the referent is realised (pronoun, full NP etc.) in its previous mention. In particular,

Accessibility and the Choice of Referring Expression

45

it has been claimed that realisation in pronominalised form, especially as a null pronoun, increases the accessibility of the referent (Walker et al. 1994; Kameyama 1999; Kaiser 2003: 134 inter alia). In sum, pronominal antecedents are more accessible than full NPs. Full NPs may in turn be more accessible than other antecedent types, i.e. events and propositions. Null pronouns have no semantic content on their own; they acquire their semantic content from the context. Since null pronouns have no semantic content in themselves, they do not provide any clues that help the addressee identify the intended referent. Hence, for the addressee to identify the intended referent of a null pronoun, this referent must be very highly accessible more so than the referent of an overt pronominal form (see Section 2.2.3 below). Accordingly, the antecedents referred to by a null pronoun are more accessible than antecedents referred to by an overt pronominal form. The antecedent forms can therefore be ranked as follows, from most accessible to least accessible: – Null pronouns – Overt pronominal forms – Full NPs – Other

2.2.1.8 The Type of Clause in which the Antecedent Occurs According to Bever & Townsend (1979: 167) and processed more deeply than subordinate clauses, suggesting that the referents of main clauses are more accessible than those of subordinate clauses. 0) Finnish data indicate that referents appearing in main clauses K are indeed more accessible than referents in subordinate clauses. Subordinate clause antecedents, however, are presumably less accessible only when the anaphor itself is not in the same complex sentence as the antecedent. When the anaphor and antecedent are in the same complex sentence, there is no reason to believe that the antecedent is less accessible than if it were in a main clause. Specifically, this holds for examples of the following type, which are abundant in the Itinerarium Egeriae: (36)

We came to the place where Mosesi stood when hei received the tablets from the Lord.

46

Theoretical Foundations

In sum, an antecedent appearing in a subordinate clause is less accessible than an antecedent that appears in a main clause only if reference crosses a complex sentence boundary.

2.2.2 Other Variables that May Influence the Choice of Referring Expression As we have seen in the preceding sections, properties of the antecedent and the left context, as well as properties of the referent itself, influence accessibility, and by virtue of this, also the choice of anaphoric expression. Other variables are not directly relevant for the accessibility of the referent, but may nevertheless influence the choice of expression. Notably, this holds for the presence or absence of competitors to the role of antecedent, syntactic function and topicality of the anaphor itself and the type of head noun in the noun phrase. In addition, backward and forward saliency may be relevant.

2.2.2.1 Competitors to the Role of Antecedent40 The presence or absence of other possible antecedents of the anaphor may influence the choice of expression. Givón (1983) points to the role of ambiguity as a factor affecting topic availability. More precisely, when there are no competitors to the role of antecedent, the referent is highly accessible. If there are competing referents present in the context, on the other hand, the referent is less accessible (see also Fox 1987; Ariel 1990: 28).41 It is not obvious, however, which referents should be registered as competip etween 1 and 5 clause to the left (Givón 1983: 14). Fox (1987) record as competitors the intervening referents that have the same gender as the intended referents, whereas Pennell Ross (1996) considers as competitors the intervening referents that are compatible with the number and gender of the intended referent.

40 The presence or absence of competitors and the type of head noun in the anaphoric noun phrase (Section 2.2.2.2 below) are not properties of the antecedent or the referent, and as such they do not directly influence the accessibility of the referent in the same way as the variables discussed in Section 2.2.1. Rather, the intended referent becomes less accessible through the relatively high availability/accessibility of other referents. Hence, these variables are discussed in this section. 41 Pennell Ross (1996) and Bolkestein & van de Grift (1994) discuss the role of competitors on the choice between the Classical Latin subject expressions (see Chapter 5).

Accessibility and the Choice of Referring Expression

47

Following Givón (1983), Fox (1987) and Pennell Ross (1996) I consider possible competitors to be the referents that intervene between the anaphor and its antecedent. Admittedly, referents that are mentioned in the context immediately preceding the antecedent can also be competitors. Consider the following example: (37)

Bill gave Johni a present, but hei

Here, both Bill and John are in principle possible referents of he. That is, Bill is a competitor to John to the role of antecedent even though Bill does not intervene between the antecedent and the anaphor. The problem, however, is that while referents intervening between the antecedent and the anaphor are always possible competitors, referents that are not intervening are not necessarily competitors. The further back a referent is mentioned, they less likely it is to be a competitor. If we were to consider possible competitors not only the referents intervening between the anaphor and the antecedent, but referents mentioned further back as well, how far back should a referent be registered as a possible competitor? This would have to be determined arbitrarily. In order to avoid that, I choose to consider as possible competitors only the referents intervening between the anaphor and its antecedent. Not all intervening referents are competitors, however. The verb disambiguates for number, so that competitors of null pronouns are only those intervening referents that have the same number as the intended referent. If the anaphoric expression is an overt pronominal form, the overt pronominal contains information on gender in addition to the information on number expressed by the verb. Thus, competitors of overt pronominal forms are only the intervening referents that have the same number and gender as the intended referent.

2.2.2.2 Type of Head Noun in the Anaphoric Noun Phrase This variable is relevant for full NPs. When the head noun of the anaphoric noun phrase is of such general character as to make several possible referents available, the task of identifying the intended referent becomes more difficult. This seems to apply in particular to time expressions and place expressions. Such general nouns are place, time, hour and so on, which specify the intended referent only to a limited extent. Consider the following example: (38)

We arrived in Italy on Mondayi. On that dayi

48

Theoretical Foundations

It is not obvious in this example that that day actually refers to Monday. This is shown by the fact that a demonstrative (which is more informative than a definite article, see Section 2.2.4 below) is used instead of a definite article, and in fact seems to be necessary to make the intended referent identifiable: (39)

?? We arrived in Italy on Mondayi. On the dayi

2.2.2.3 Syntactic Function of the Anaphor Not all expressions may be possible in all syntactic functions. As we will see, syntactic function influences first and foremost the choice between a null pronoun and other expressions in the Itinerarium Egeriae. It may, however, be relevant for other expressions as well.

2.2.2.4 Topicality of the Anaphor As mentioned above (Section 2.2.1.5, see also Givón 1983; Lambrecht 1994), the preferred topic expressions are pronominal forms, and hence the topicality of the anaphor itself may influence the choice of anaphoric expression, in particular the choice between pronominal forms and full NPs, but other expressions may be sensitive to topicality as well.

2.2.2.5 Backward and Forward Saliency Following Givón (1983), Bolkestein & van de Grift (1994) discuss the Classical Latin subject expressions with respect to the number of mentions made to the referent in the preceding context, as well as the tendency of the referent to be picked up in the later discourse and for the noun phrase to refe p pHence, I discuss these variables in Chapter 5 on the pronominal forms.42

42 The effect of these variables on the choice between full NP anaphors and pronominal anaphors and on the choice between the various forms of full NPs is not clear; the expressions showed no clear or interesting tendencies. Therefore, I do not discuss these variables in Chapter 4 and 6.

Accessibility and the Choice of Referring Expression

49

2.2.3 Correlations between Accessibility and Various Referring Expressions In Sections 2.2.1 and 2.2.2 I reviewed several variables that are assumed to influence the accessibility of a referent and/or the choice of expression. The question remains, however, as to how accessibility correlates with the referring expressions in a language. That is, what is the accessibility required by the different forms? Gundel et al. (1993) connect each of the referring expressions with a particular cognitive status. Their Givenness hierarchy was given in 2.2.1.1 above. I repeat it here with the (English) forms associated with each cognitive status (higher cognitive status = higher accessibility in my terminology): In Uniquely Type focus > Activated > Familiar > identifiable > Referential > identifiable it that that N the N Indefinite aN this this N this N Figure 4: The Givenness hierarchy of Gundel et al. (1993), with forms

The status u status. It is the minimum cognitive status that the referent must have in order for the use of that form to be felicitous. The statuses are implicationally related. This entails that a form can encode not only its necessary and sufficient status, q the status but all higher statuses as well. For instance, the, which requires vertheless, the use of a form lower in the hierarchy to refer to a referent of higher pp p y some special p cognitive status is sometimes inappropriate, or it conveys effect, a (Gundel et al. 1993: 294 303) (more on this in the following Section 2.2.4).

50

Theoretical Foundations

Ariel (1990: 73) gives the following, highly detailed, accessibility marking scale: Low accessibility

Full name + modifier 43

Long definite description Short definite description Last name First name Distal demonstrative + modifier Proximal demonstrative + modifier Distal demonstrative (+NP) Proximal demonstrative (+NP) Stressed pronoun + gesture Stressed pronoun Unstressed pronoun Cliticised pronoun Extremely High Accessibility Markers [i.e. gaps, including High accessibility

pro, pro and wh traces, reflexives, and Agreement]44

Figure 5: The accessibility scale of Ariel (1990: 73)

The main distinction made by Ariel (1990) is between high accessibility markers, intermediate accessibility markers and low accessibility markers. The high accessibility markers include pronouns and gaps, intermediate accessibility markers are (pronominal) demonstratives, whereas definite descriptions (full NPs) are low accessibility markers (see also Ariel 2001). The same three-way distinction can be derived from the Givenness hierarchy of Gundel et al. (1993). Given this, a simplified accessibility hierarchy like the following can be assumed (see also Kaiser, 2011): (40)

Pronouns > demonstratives > full NPs

43 Namy names are archetypal proper names like Joan Smith, as opposed to less archetypal ones like (The) Alliance) (Ariel, 1990: 44). 44 In my opinion, grammatical categories like traces and agreement do not belong in the accessibility hierarchy because they are purely abstract syntactic entities which are not used for referent tracking.

Accessibility and the Choice of Referring Expression

51

In addition, since pronominal forms are less informative i.e. contain less information assisting the addressee in identifying the referent than full NPs, I assume there is a main distinction between pronominal forms (including pronominal demonstratives) on the one hand, and full NPs (including demonstrative NPs45) on the other, a fact which is not stated clearlyy in the literature. Moreover, null pronouns because they contain no information at all (but receive their semantic content from the context, as I pointed out in Section 2.2.1.7 above). Therefore, null pronouns require even higher accessibility than overt pronominal forms. In sum, we can establish the following accessibility hierarchy: High accessibility

Null pronouns Pronominal forms

Overt personal pronouns Pronominal demonstratives

Low accessibility

Full NPs

Demonstrative NPs Definite NPs

Figure 6: The accessibility hierarchy

So far, we have seen the variables that affect accessibility as well as certain other variables that may influence the choice of referring expression. This is not all there is to it, however. More specifically, certain cooperative principles, as formulated by Grice (1975), play a role too. This will become clear in the following section.

2.2.4 Accessibility and G As we saw in Section 2.2.3, Gundel et al. (1993) assume that their Givenness hierarchy is implicational, so that a form that is lower in the hierarchy a lower accessibility marker can be used to refer to a referent higher in the hierarchy a more accessible referent. As I pointed out above, however, the use of a lower form to refer to a referent higher in the hierarchy is sometimes inappropriate, or

45 I use the term demonstrative NP to refer to noun phrases that consist of a demonstrative determiner and a head noun with or without attributes (that (popular) book). The same term is used by e.g. Apothéloz & Reichler-Béguelin (1999). Gundel et al. (1993; 2001) speak of demonstrative phrases .

52

Theoretical Foundations

it conveys some special effect. This holds true primarily for the pronominal forms. As regards the full NPs, Gundel et al. (1993) note, it is frequently the case y that a lower form is used to refer to a referent which is higher in the hierarchy. pproach. Grice assumes that conversation is governed by what he calls the cooperative p principle p , namelyy that the interlocutors are expected p to make their conversaaccepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged (Grice 1975: 45). The cooperative principle is stated in four maxims, the maxim of quantity, the maxim of quality, the maxim of relation and the maxim of manner. As already mentioned, of relevance to us here is the maxim of quantity. The maxim of quantity, as given in Grice (1975: 45), consists of the following two principles: 1. Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purposes of the exchange). 2. Do not make your contribution more informative than is required. We can refer to the former as Q1, the latter as Q2. With respect to the division between demonstrative NPs and definite NPs, we have seen that definite NPs are lower accessibility markers than demonstrative NPs in the hierarchies of both Ariel (1990) and Gundel et al. (1993). Whereas demonstrative NPs in the terminology of Gundel et al. (1993) require the referent to be familiar, it is enough for a definite NP that the referent be uniquely identifiable. Since a familiar referent is also uniquely identifiable, definite NPs can refer to familiar referents as well, and they often do. In fact, a demonstrative NP will be used only if there is good reason for it (Gundel et al. 1993: 301). According to Gundel et al. do not make your contribution more informative than is required , ensures that the lowest possible form, viz. the definite article, is used even when the referent is of a higher cognitive status and thus a demonstrative would be possible as well. That is, a definite article is normally preferred to an adnominal demonstrative even when the referent is familiar. p between p Regarding the relationship pronominal demonstratives and perinteracts with the Givenness hierarsonal pronouns chy y in another way. y According to Gundel et al. (1993: 293), the first part of the required ) secures the use of an unstressed personal pronoun in most cases, even though a demonstrative is in principle possible because a referent that is in focus (the status required by personal pronouns), is also activated (the status

Accessibility and the Choice of Referring Expression

53

required by pronominal demonstratives). The point is that when a demonstrative is used, Q1 conversationally implicates that the referent is not in focus (Gundel et al. 1993: 297). This renders a demonstrative inappropriate when the referent is in focus. Rather, Gundel et al. (1993: 293) point out that demonstratives signal a focus shift (following Isard 1975; Linde 1979, Bosch 1983 and Sidner 1983), precisely because the referent in such cases is not in focus. The claim that a demonstrative is not suitable when the referent is highlyy ) which is at work in the case of personal p pronouns vs. pronominal demonstratives ative than required ) is at work in the case of definite articles vs. adnominal demonstratives 300) explanation relates to the fact that pronominal forms have little descriptive content, and information about cognitive status is crucial for the identification of the referent. Full NPs, on the other hand, contain more descriptive content, which makes an explicit signal of cognitive status unnecessary. It is implicit in the work of Gundel et al. (1993) that the higher form in the Givenness hierarchy, the more informative. This is not necessarily so. Informativeness in a Gricean sense, I believe, must be seen independently of the Givenness hierarchy, and both Q1 and Q2 are at work in the relation between definite articles and adnominal demonstratives as well as in the relation between personal pronouns and pronominal demonstratives. According to Gundel et al. (1993), adnominal demonstratives are more informative than definite articles, whereas pronominal demonstratives are less informative than personal pronouns. This follows from the fact that adnominal demonstratives are higher in the Givenness hierarchy than definite articles, and that pronominal demonstratives are lower than personal pronouns. In my opinion, demonstratives are in both cases the most informative devices. As we will see in Section 2.3, whereas definite articles and personal pronouns are [+DEFINITE], demonstratives are [+DEFINITE] and [+DEMONSTRATIVE]. In this sense, demonstratives are more informative than both definite articles and personal pronouns, because they not only indicate that the referent is identifiable and thus definite, but also make the reference clear b the intended referent and contrasting it with other possible referents, either in the real world or in the discourse (see below in Section 2.3). In the case of adnominal demonstratives vs. definite articles, then, Q2 ) secures the use of a definite article unless there is good reason to use a demonstrative instead because demonstratives are more informative. This is the view taken by Gundel et al. (1993) as well.

54

Theoretical Foundations

When the referent is relatively highly accessible, as in the following example, a demonstrative NP is not impossible, but it is unnecessary and seems somewhat too s (41) a. We reached the valley which leads up to the mount of God. The valley is truly huge. When we came to the valley, we... b. ? We reached the valley which leads up to the mount of God. That/this valley is truly huge. When we came to that/this valley, we... It seems that the result of substituting a definite NP with a demonstrative NP is not as bad as substituting a personal pronoun for a pronominal demonstrative, cf. example (43) below. This is probably because full NPs are more informative than pronominal forms; hence, the exact form of the full NP is of less importance. for a demonstrative to appear is when accessibility is so low that it would not be made clear by a definite article that the reference is to the previously mentioned referent. In this case Q1 Make your contribution as informative as is required ) makes a demonstrative appear. Anaphorically, a more informative demonstrative is necessary as a means of explicitly signalling that the referent is in fact previously mentioned: (42) a. One valuable outcome of these organizational studies was the refinement of our notions of three different approaches that could be incorporated in an automated message filtering system. We refer to these [those?] techniques as the cognitive, social, and economic approaches to information filtering. (Thomas Malone et al., Intelligent information sharing systems. Communications of the ACM 30(5): 391 (1987), cited in Gundel et al. 1993: 302) b. ? We refer to the techniques as the cognitive, social, and economic approaches to information filtering. p between p p p The relationship pronominal demonstratives and personal pronouns is et al. 1993), a personal pronoun suffices, and a demonstrative would be more ): (43) a. A UFO was seen over Oslo today. It was blue. b. * A UFO was seen over Oslo today. That/this was blue.

Definite Articles, Personal Pronouns and Demonstratives

55

The UFO is highly accessible because it is what the sentence is about (the topic). A demonstrative in this case would imply the presence of some other UFO in the y than the colour blue. context with some other q quality y nWhen accessibility formative as required ) in order to make it clear that the intended referent is not the one which is in focus, viz. most highly accessible, but some less accessible entity. This holds for (44), for instance: (44) a. And the living room was a veryy very small room with two windows that that. (from Linde 1979: 348) b. * And the living room was a very y very small room with two windows that it. A personal pronoun would imply that that reference was to the living room, which is what the sentence is about (the topic) and also highly accessible. More information than that provided by a personal pronoun is necessary for identifying the correct referent, and a demonstrative is therefore imposed. Taking this view on informativeness, one avoids the problem of why it is Q1 that is at work in the one case and Q2 in the other, since both principles apply to both cases.

2.3 Definite Articles, Personal Pronouns and Demonstratives 2.3.1 Definite Articles Following Lyons (1999), we can describe a de seems to have as its sole or principal role to indicate the definiteness [...] of the noun phrase (Lyons 1999: 1). In other words, definite articles are [+ DEFINITE], as already mentioned. Since definiteness in Section 2.1.5 was argued to consist in identifiability, this means that the definite article can appear in a noun phrase whose referent is identifiable. This also coincides with the assumption by Gundel et al. (1993) that the definite article signals that the referent is uniquely identifiable (see Section 2.2.3 above). There are many ways in which a referent can be identifiable. Definite articles are therefore used in several different functions. Examples of the various uses a definite article may have in a language are shown in (45) through (52): Anaphora:

56 (45)

Theoretical Foundations

Once upon a time there was a king. The king had three daughters.

Indirect anaphora:46 (46)

I took the bus and asked the driver to please tell me where to get off.

With an establishing relative clause or other modifier: (47)

The woman Bill went out with last night wants to marry me.

Immediate situation uses: (48)

Beware of the dog!

General world knowledge (49) and shared knowledge of speaker and addressee: (49)

Newspaper heading: After the tsunamii

(50)

Husband to his wife: If you pick up the children n

Uniques: (51)

The Earth is accepted by scientists to be around 4.5 billion years old.

Generics: (52)

The lion is a mammal.

2.3.2 Personal Pronouns Personal pronouns can be regarded the pronominal counterpart to definite articles (e.g. Lyons 1999), 47 and, as already mentioned, like definite articles they are [+DEFINITE]. Because they contain little information assisting the addressee in

46 Called inferable by Prince (1981), associative anaphora by Himmelmann (1996). 47 in fact argues that personal pronouns derive transformationally from definite articles.

Definite Articles, Personal Pronouns and Demonstratives

57

identifying the referent, however, they are much more restricted in their uses than are definite articles, which always accompany a noun (or other element). Personal pronouns are high accessibility markers (see 2.2.3 above), and their primary use is anaphoric (E.g. Isard, 1975: 289; Chafe 1994, 97; Gundel et al. 1993): (53)

The womani Billj went out with last night says shei wants to marry himj.

Note, however, that personal pronouns have non-anaphoric uses too (shown e.g. for present-day English by Wales, 1996: 36 42). Bosch (1983) cites the following example (Bosch 1983: 146): (54)

The man who shows he deserves it will get the price he desires.

Here, it refers cataphorically forward to the price he desires. Example (54) is non-specific; there is no real-world referent corresponding to the discourse referent. Also in specific contexts like the following, a personal pronoun is possible: (55)

If you show you deserve it, you will get the price.

Moreover, a personal pronoun is possible in examples like the following, where the noun phrase contains additional information that assists the addressee in identifying the referent (in this case an establishing relative clause): (56)

He who won got the price.

The cataphoric use of personal pronouns (as in (54) and (55)) as well as the use of personal pronouns with an establishing relative clause or another modifier (as in (56))48 tend to be ignored by scholars concerned with the mental status / accessibility of referring expressions (see Section 2.2 above). The general assumption that personal pronouns require high accessibility does not account for these uses of personal pronouns.

48 Cataphora is also used with reference to examples like (56). Here, however, there is no reference to an element in the following context, contrary to (54) and (55), where it points forward to the price (he desires). I reserve cataphora for the latter.

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Theoretical Foundations

2.3.2.1 A Note on Null Pronouns In the discussion of accessibility and the choice of referring expression in Section 2.2, I tacitly assumed that there is such thing as null pronouns, a special type of pronouns that require higher accessibility than overt pronominal forms. It is not obvious, however, that null pronouns do in fact exist. That is, in the o argue that there sentence Caesarem amo is no element occupying the subject position of amo, and that amo simply has no subject. Syntactic theorists, on the other hand, maintain that there must be an empty element occupying the subject position in such cases. 49 The postulation of this empty that every p y element follows from the assumptions p y clause must

Chomskyan theories). I do not go into the details of that argumentation here; in fact, it is not important for the present study whether there is some empty element occupying the subject position of amo or not. In either case, it is clear that if a verbal argument is not overtly expressed, the intended referent must be highly accessible for the addressee to be able to identify it. Nevertheless, I assume for the present purposes that there is an empty element a null pronoun occupying the subject position of amo in a sentence like Caesarem amo. Null pronouns, moreover, can appear in other syntactic functions too.

2.3.3 Demonstratives Demonstratives must be something more than just [+DEFINITE], otherwise they would not be any different from definite articles or personal pronouns. Demonstratives are sometimes said to be characterised by a distance feature (e.g. Andersen & Keenan, 1985). Diessel (1999; 2006), Himmelmann (1996) and Lyons (1999) argue against such a view, showing that demonstratives do not invariay express p g to Diessel (2006), rather than expressing p bly distance. According disLyons y (1999)

49 This element is labelled pro (used for finite verb forms) or PRO (used for infinite verb forms) within Chomskyan theories. Within Lexical-Functional Grammar, too, a PRO is postulated in f-structure (but this is not identical to n theories, notably because PRO within LFG is only present in the f-structure and is not assumed to occupy a specific position in the linear string).

Definite Articles, Personal Pronouns and Demonstratives

59

demonstratives, and assumes that [+DEM(ONSTRATIVE)] is the feature characterising demonstratives and distinguishing them from definite articles. I assume eal world or in the discourse. Even though not all demonstratives express a distance contrast, some demonstratives undeniably do. I thus take the view that demonstratives are always [+DEFINITE] and [+DEMONSTRATIVE], and, in addition, some of them have a distance feature. Be; they imply a contrast with another referent. Adnominal demonstratives seem to express a contrast with a referent of the same kind but with different properties (that book (with the blue cover), as opposed to the book with the green cover, for instance). Because of their [+DEMONSTRATIVE] feature eature demonstratives are more restricted than definite articles. As we saw in Section 2.2.3, demonstratives are assumed to be intermediate accessibility markers, and in the Givenness hierarchy of Gundel et al. (1993), demonstratives require at least the cognitive status familiar, namely y that the referent be represented in the ives must in addishort-term memory. Gundel et al. (1993), however, do not take into account the extra-linguistic use of demonstratives; if an entity is present in the discourse situation / extralinguistic context, it is not necessarily activated or familiar to the addressee. The addressee may have already seen the object in which case he is familiar with it, and the object is also present in his short-term memory but that is not a prerequisite for a demonstrative to be felicitously q y used. I mentioned in Section 50 2.1.3 on the definite monstratives differ from definite articles by y being g article. is, the referent must be either known to the hearer through previous mention or visible in the situation for a demonstrative to be felicitous (Hawkins 1978: 152). Thus, this approach captures also the extra-linguistic uses of demonstratives.51 In addition, however, demonstratives have cataphoric uses, as in: (57)

I tell you thiss

50 I.e. that the definite article instructs the hearer to locate the referent in some shared set of objects. 51 But not the cases in which the referent is present in the addressee s memory without previous mention.

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Theoretical Foundations

This use is n et al. 1993) or by visibility in the situation (Hawkins 1978). The referent, however, is present in the immediate linguistic context. This suggests that the referent of a demonstrative need not be present in the preceding context; the referent may y be present in the immediate following context as well. In sum, the referent in the immediate linguistic or extra-linguistic context (i.e. the immediate situation). Thus, we can formulate the following constraint on demonstratives: CONSTRAINT ON DEMONSTRATIVES: Demonstratives require the referent to be present either in mory or in the immediate linguistic or extra-linguistic context.

One particular use of demonstratives is problematic for this constraint, however. A demonstrative, either pronominal or adnominal, may appear as the head of a restrictive relative clause without the referent being present in the address-linguistic context: (58)

Those who did this, will be punished.

(59)

Those students who did this, will be punished.

Although (59) seems to favour a reading in which the referent is in fact present -term) memory, this need not be the case. I suspect that in examples like (58) and (59), the demonstrative is not characterised by a [+DEMONSTRATIVE] feature. These are special uses of the demonstratives, and demonstrative closely resembles a definite article (when adnominal) or a personal pronoun (when pronominal) in these cases. Demonstratives have various uses.52 In some cases a demonstrative is necessary for the identification of the referent, according to make your y contribution as informative as is required q .53 That is, reference would

52 Finer-grained taxonomies of demonstrative uses than the uses mentioned here are found e.g. in Levinson (2004). 53 Himmelmann (1996), following Sidner (1983), argues that a demonstrative may be necessary in some cases not for the identification of the referent but because a definite article would create some unwanted effect, such as a focus shift in the terminology of Sidner (1983).

Definite Articles, Personal Pronouns and Demonstratives

61

use 1996) terms (see also Fillmore, 1982: 54). Like definite articles and personal pronouns, demonstratives can be anaphoric, as in (44) above, repeated here as (60), or cataphoric, as in (61): (60)

And the living room was a very very small room with two windows that that. (A personal pronoun would refer to the living room)

(61)

This is what I believe: All men were created equal. (A personal pronoun would imply reference to a previously mentioned referent)

Himmelmann (1996) and Levinson (2004) distinguish a separate category of deictic use of demonstratives. These are cases in which the demonstrative refers to a proposition or event: (62)

that storyy (cited in Himmelmann 1996: 224)

I do not treat discourse deixis as a separate category, but discuss the discourse deictic uses in the Itinerarium Egeriae together with the anaphoric ones; the ferring expression refers back to something previously mentioned in the discourse. 54 Finally, demonstratives refer to referents that are present in the immediate situation, as in (30) above, repeated here as (63):55 (63)

[Pointing at one of several books in a book shelf] Give me that book, please. (Without the demonstrative, it would not be clear which book is intended)

54 The referring expressions may nevertheless behave differently in cases of discourse deixis than in other cases of anaphoric reference (see Section 4.3.2.8). 55 Himmelmann (1996) includes neither discourse deixis nor immediate situation uses among the tracking uses. Tracking use is therefore a wider notion to me than it is to Himmelmann. Tracking use in my view are all uses of demonstratives in which the demonstrative is necessary for the identification of the referent.

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Theoretical Foundations

As already mentioned, the above-mentioned uses of demonstratives are cases in which a demonstrative is necessary for the identification of the referent, and I call these tracking uses of the demonstratives. The tracking use is generally restricted to the above-mentioned contexts, and there are certain contexts in which tracking demonstratives are not appropriate. First of all, Himmelmann (1996: 210-211) takes the possibility of being used in indirect anaphora as a property characterising definite articles and personal pronouns, but not demonstratives (see also Lyons 1999: 20; Diessel 2006: 477 inter alia). Demonstratives are indeed not easily used in indirect anaphora: (64)

* I took the bus and asked that/this driver to please tell me where to get off.

This, however, is not always true. Apothéloz & Reichler-Béguelin (1999), for instance, show that demonstratives are currently used in indirect anaphora in French. Also, consider the following example from Isard (1975: 290): (65)

First square 19 and then cube that.

According to Gundel et al. (1993: 282; 2000), if the link between the inferable referent and the referent from which it is inferred is strong enough to activate a representation of the inferable nstrative is indeed possible. Likewise, when the referent is unique, demonstratives are generally not possible (e.g. Himmelmann 1996: 210). (66)

*That/*this Earth is accepted by scientists to be around 4.5 billion years old.

When the referent is generic, reference is to the entire class of objects satisfied point out one concrete referent belonging to this class, which is not the intended meaning of generic sentences: (67)

* That/*this lion is a mammal.56

56 Obviously, the example is grammatical on the reading where reference is to one concrete lion. When reference is to lion-kind , however, the sentence is ungrammatical, and the latter reading is the one intended here.

Definite Articles, Personal Pronouns and Demonstratives

63

uses of demon-

thatt the demonstrative is not, strictly speaking, necessary for the identification of the referent, but serves to remind the addressee that the referent is one which is

(1996) cites the following example from the Pear Stories as an example of the recognitional use of demonstratives: (68)

...it was filmed in California, those dusty kind of hills that they have out here in Stockton and all [...] (cited in Himmelmann 1996: 230)

In this example, the referent is identifiable without the demonstrative as well: (69)

...it was filmed in California, the dusty kind of hills that they have out here in Stockton and all [...]

The same holds true for the following example: (70) a. That dog next door kept me awake last night. b. The dog next door kept me awake last night. A final use of demonstratives is what Lakoff (1974) calls the emotional use of demonstratives.57 Emotional uses of demonstratives share with the recognitional demonstratives the property of referring to a referent that is known to both the speaker and the addressee. In addition, they may create a sense of intimacy, camaraderie or closeness (Lakoff 1974): (71)

that throat? (Said by a doctor to a patient)

According to Wolter (2006), knowledge or emotion about the referent of the demonstrative (Wolter 2006: 83). Emotional demonstratives are often possible when a demonstrative would

57 Lakoff considers emotional also cases in which this is used in place of the indefinite article, what Gundel et al. (1993) refer to as indefinite thiss . I find it hard to regard this use of this as emotional.

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Theoretical Foundations

(see also Wolter, 2006),

e.g. with uniques: (72)

This Obama is really a great guy!

2.3.4 When has a Demonstrative Become a Definite Article or a Personal Pronoun? We have seen that demonstratives, definite articles and personal pronouns are definite, and that they have partly overlapping uses. Moreover, definite articles and personal pronouns often arise from demonstratives. Now the question arises as to where the distinction between a demonstrative and a definite article or personal pronoun should be drawn diachronically. That is, when has the demonstrative ceased to be a demonstrative and become a definite article or a personal pronoun? Scholars discussing the diachronic relationship between definite articles and demonstratives differ somewhat in their opinions as to when a demonstrative is no longer a demonstrative and is to be regarded a definite article. To my knowledge, nothing is said about the distinction between demonstratives and personal pronouns. Greenberg (1978) assumes the following four stages in the development of definite articles: Stage 0:

Demonstrative

Stage 1:

Definite article

Stage 2:

Generic article

Stage 3:

Noun-marker

Figure 7: Stages of the definite article in Greenberg (1978)

Relevant here is the transition from stage 0 to stage 1, that is from demonstrative otes, in g general, thus including typically things known from context, general knowledge, or as -scientific discourse, identified because it is the only member of its class. (Greenberg 1978: 61 62)

Definite Articles, Personal Pronouns and Demonstratives

65

Himmelmann (1996) sees larger situation uses (general world knowledge, uniques) and associative anaphoric uses as the uses characterising definite articles and distinguishing them from demonstratives; the definite article sigy whereas the demonstrative nals that the referent is to be retrieved indirectly, focuses the hearer (2010: 249) put it. To Krámský (1972), the essence of genuine articles is that they occur with generics. Hawkins (2004) has a less restrictive view on when the demonstrative has become an article. He describes the development of definite articles in four stages (Hawkins 2004: 84 86). In stage 1, the deictic distinction between entities close to the speaker and entities far from the speaker is abandoned. The article can therefore identify a referent relative to a whole pragmatic set (see Section 2.1.3 above), either the whole visible situation or the whole previous text. The definite article is limited to anaphoric reference to the previous text and objects that exist in the immediate situation of utterance. In stage 2, the definite article is extended to non-visible and larger situations, referents known from general knowledge and associative anaphora. In stage 3, the article is exp tended to generics. In stage 4, the article is extended further, to specific indefitagLike Hawkins, Harris (1978: 70) regards the marking of the degree of proximity as the distinguishing feature of demonstratives. In determining whether ille and ipse are definite articles / personal pronouns in the Itinerarium Egeriae, I make two important assumptions. First, my point of view is that of the individual speaker. There is a difference between regarding linguistic change from the point of view of the entire speech community and from the point of view of the individual members of the speech community the individual speakers. From the point of view of the individual, a linguistic change is abrupt, and the linguistic item in question belongs to either the one or the other category. That is, in the development from demonstrative to definite article / personal pronoun the item in each single occurrence is either a demonstrative or a definite article / personal pronoun, not something in between, or partly a demonstrative and partly a definite article / personal pronoun. If one considers linguistic change from a speech community perspective, on the other hand, linguistic change is gradual. It does not affect all the speakers and all contexts at the same time. Rather, it spreads to more and more

66

Theoretical Foundations

speakers, and the item in question q graduallyy acquires q new uses. 58 Hence, it is legitimat -like or suchlike. Considering the change in a speaker perspective, on the other hand, p must be either demonstraimplies that in each single occurrence ille and ipse tives or definite arti -like ip cloïdes or something in between a demonstrative and a definite article / personal pronoun. As mentioned in Section 1.1.3 vari elementi [...] saranno di volta in volta definibili come dimostrativa o determinativa e mai come un compromesso fra le due [ the various elements can each time be defined as demonstrative or determiner and never as a compromise between those two ion mine (Nocentini 1990: 143, italics added). 59 Considering linguistic change from the perspective of the individual language user implies that the functions/uses ille and ipse have or do not have in other occurrences are irrelevant to their analysis in one specific occurrence. If ille or ipse shows the properties of a definite article / personal pronoun in a given occurrence, it is a definite article / personal pronoun in this occurrence independently of whether it has from a speech community perspective acquired new uses, that is, in the case of definite articles, general knowledge uses, generic uses, associative uses etc. (cf. Greenberg 1978; Himmelmann 1996). What is decisive are the properties of ille and ipse in each single occurrence. Definite articles, personal pronouns and demonstratives have certain phonological, morphological, syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic properties. 60 I assume that the semantic and pragmatic properties are the most basic ones in the sense that these are what define the categories and distinguish them from the other categories of words. That is to say, an element showing the phonological, morphological, and/or syntactic properties of, say, a definite article is not a definite article unless it also shows the semantic/pragmatic properties of a definite article. Definite articles are typically monosyllabic, prosodically weak and

58 I do not intend that the speech community perspective is generally irrelevant in describing the development of the Latin language. Once originated, the definite article and personal pronoun will begin their gradual spread to more and more speakers, and they will gradually acquire new uses. But the genesis of these new categories is abrupt and is to be found in the mind of the individual speaker. 59 This is not to say that more than one interpretation is not possible in a given example. It may be possible in a given example to interpret, say, ille as a personal pronoun or as a demonstrative. The point is that it can never be something in between. 60 The phonological, morphological, and syntactic properties are irrelevant for the present study, and I do not discuss these here. For an overview see e.g. Lyons (1999) and references therein.

Intensifiers

67

occupy a fixed position with respect to the noun. Yet an item showing all of these properties need not be a definite article. It can be a particle, for instance. Also in a process of grammaticalisation, the linguistic item in question typically acquires new uses and meanings before it undergoes phonological, morphological and syntactic changes (Hopper & Traugott 2003; Heine 2003; Heine & Kuteva 2006). Since it is the semantic/pragmatic properties of an item that determines to which category it belongs, I assume that ille and ipse are definite articles and personal pronouns when they show the pragmatic/semantic properties of a definite article or a personal pronoun. It is not necessary for them also to show all the phonological, morphological, and syntactic properties typically associated with definite articles or personal pronouns.

2.4 Intensifiers Intensifiers are focusing devices (Siemund 2000). Contrary to definite articles, personal pronouns and demonstratives, they are not used for referent tracking. König (1991) and Siemund (2000) also argue in favour of them being focus particles. Intensifiers have been shown to express several different (but related) meanings. Notions evoked to describe the meaning of adnominal intensifiers are remarkability/unexpectedness (Edmonson & Plank 1978; and for Latin, Bertocchi 1996), centrality (König 1991;61 for Latin, Joffre 2007), likeliness/expectancy (Primus 1992). Edmonson & Plank (1978), following Bolinger (1972), take a scalar approach to adnominal intensifiers. A scalar approach is taken by Primus (1992) as well. The point of the scalar approach is that the intensifier orders the referent in question and the alternatives evoked on a scale from least expected/likely to most expected/likely; the intensifier makes the focus referent the least expected, least likely or most remarkable participant in the action or state described by the verb. Similarly, Bertocchi (1996) argues, remarkability/unexpectedness is the meaning of the adnominal intensifier in Latin. According to Siemund (2000: 131), on the other hand, adnominal intensifiers do not always evoke a scale of likeliness. There is an ordering of focus and alternatives, but it is not scalar. Rather, an adnominal intensifier 132). That is, adnomi-

61 See König & Gast ( precise by analysing intensifiers as expressions of an identity function.

68

Theoretical Foundations

nal intensifiers, Siemund (2000) maintains, express a contrast between a central referent and a set of more peripheral alternatives. ces of intensifiers which can be described in terms of remarkability/unexpectedness/likeliness as well as occurrences in which these notions cannot appropriately describe the use of the intensifier. In my opinion, the notions of centre and periphery do not always fit the remarkability/unexpectedness cases very well, however. Consider the following example: (73)

The president himself wrote the letter.

(73) is justified by the fact that the p president is more central than others who could have written the letter ntral referent in comparison with the people working for him. On the other hand, the p president is not more central when it comes to writing letters. Since somecentral in this context. What himself expresses is that a generally central or important referent the president performed an action in which he is not a central participant. In other words, himself expresses unexpectedness/remarkability. On the other hand, there are certainly cases in which remarkability/unexpectedness is not suitable for describing the use of the intensifier: (74)

John himself is a musician. (from Siemund 2000: 128)

p y Siemund (2000: 128), we cannot have expectations p As pointed out by concernin that of being an actress. Centrality, on the other hand, can account for this example in that John is central by virtue of being whom the discourse is about, and obviously central with respect to his wife inasmuch as she is identified through her connection with John. Since there are, on the one hand, intensifier uses that cannot be accounted for by remarkability/unexpectedness and, on the other, intensifier uses in which remarkability/unexpectedness seem to be more suitable than centrality, I assume that both centrality and remarkability/unexpectedness are necessary to describe all uses of adnominal intensifiers.

Intensifiers

69

Regarding what have been labelled sentence-final (Moravcsik 1972), non head-bound (Edmonson & Plank 1978) or adverbial (Siemund 2000) intensifiers,62 these are assumed by Edmonson & Plank (1978) to express the direct involvement of the referent in the action, to the exclusion of other p possible p participants (see Bertocchi 1996 intensifiers ntensifiers, Siemund (2000) recognises what he calls inclusive adverbial intensifiers. Inclusive adverbial intensifiers imply that there is another individual for which the same property holds (Siemund 2000: 178). An example is you look well yourself, which implies that the speaker looks well too. Finally, there are uses of intensifiers in which a reversal of semantic roles is expressed (e.g. Edmondson & Plank 1978; Siemund 2000). Edmondson & Plank (1978) give among others the following example, where the agent of the first coordinated sentence becomes the patient in the second coordinated sentence: (75)

Lucrezia poisoned Lorenzo, and was herself poisoned by Cesare. (from Edmondson & Plank 1978: 386)

To sum up, the different meanings expressed by intensifiers are: – Centrality – Remarkability/unexpectedness – Reversal of semantic roles – Inclusiveness – Exclusiveness (exclusion of the involvement by others) Some notion of contrast seems to be implicit in all these meanings. Demonstratives are contrastive as well (see Section 2.3.3 above), but intensifiers and demonstratives express different types of contrast.63 Contrary to adnominal demonstratives, which express a contrast with another referent of the same properties, p the contrast expressed by an intensifier is kind, but with different p different from, but in some wayy related to [italics Consider the following examples:

62 That is, intensifiers that appear alone, not juxtaposed to a noun, as in John wrote the letter himself, as opposed to John himself wrote the letter, which is an adnominal intensifier. 63 This difference at least holds between adnominal intensifiers and adnominal demonstratives.

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Theoretical Foundations

(76)

That president wrote the letter.

(77)

The president himself wrote the letter.

In (76), there is an implicit contrast with another president, whereas in (77) the p implicit contrast is not with another president, but with, say, a member of the staff. It would be impossible p to use that president p to express a contrast the president himself cannot express a contrast with another president.

2.5 Summary In this chapter, p Ip presented and discussed the theoretical foundations that unrgued in favour of a universal concept of definiteness that can be described as y of discourse referents. I went on to discuss accessibility y and the identifiability quantity with accessibility. Further, I reviewed the properties of three major exponents of definiteness, namely definite articles, personal pronouns and demonstratives, and discussed the question as to when a demonstrative has become a definite article or personal pronoun. Finally, I outlined the properties of intensifiers. With regard to accessibility, it is not obvious that all the variables thought to influence accessibility and/or the choice of referring expression are relevant for Latin, more precisely the Itinerarium Egeriae, and that the Latin expressions behave as expected with respect to these variables. Nor is it obvious that all the variables have an equally strong effect. In the present study, it will become clear how the referring expressions in the Itinerarium Egeriae behave with respect to these variables and which of the variables are most relevant. Also, I will attempt to establish an accessibility hierarchy of the referring expressions in the Itinerarium Egeriae. Before we move on to the empirical part, however, a presentation of the methods and data is in order. This is the subject of the next chapter.

3 Methods and Data Extraction In the previous chapter, I discussed the theoretical assumptions underlying the present study. In this chapter, I focus on the practical matters, describing the corpus used and the annotation in this corpus (Section 3.1) and the ways in which the data were extracted (Section 3.2). Finally, I provide a note on the statistical methods I used in this study (Section 3.3).

3.1 The PROIEL Corpus The study was carried out within the research project Pragmatic Resources in Old Indo-European Languages (PROIEL) at the University of Oslo. Hence, my data are extracted from the PROIEL corpus, which was developed as part of the PROIEL project.64 The PROIEL corpus was originally a parallel corpus of the Greek text of the New Testament and its translations into Latin, Old Church Slavic, Gothic and Classical Armenian. The corpus has later been extended to include several other texts in the above-mentioned as well as other old IndoEuropean languages, including the Itinerarium Egeriae in Latin

3.1.1 Text Selection There exists only one manuscript of the Itinerarium Egeriae, that discovered by the Italian archaeologist and historian Gian-Francesco Gamurrini in 1884. All editions of the text are therefore based on this manuscript. Several editions of 65 pp in the course of the years. y The text of the Itinerarium Egeriae have appeared the Itinerarium Egeriae giinally from 1908 (fourth edition, Heraeus 1939) tion was a practical one. Instead of writing the entire text of an edition manually into the corpus, which would be a hugely y time-consuming process, we wanted a freely available online,66 it was chosen and automatically imported. The import-

64 The corpus is available online at http://www.tekstlab.uio.no:3000 65 For an overview, see e.g. Maraval (1982: 46 49) 66 Available at

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Methods and Data Extraction

ed text was checked manually for errors and discrepancies against the original edition. In looking at large amounts of data, the small differences that exist between one edition and another do not affect the general picture to any large extent, especially for a text of which only one manuscript exists. The practical benefits of easy and efficient text importation were therefore considered more important than concern for details.

3.1.2 Multilayered Annotation The PROIEL corpus contains several layers of annotation: – Morphological and syntactic annotation – Information structure annotation (see Section 3.1.3 below) – Semantic annotation, including animacy (see Section 3.1.4 below) The syntactic annotation is based on a dependency grammar enriched with secondary dependencies inspired by the structure-sharing mechanisms in Lexical-Functional Grammar. The syntactic categories used in the PROIEL corpus are the following: Table 3: Syntactic functions in the PROIEL corpus Relation

Explanation

PRED

Predicate

SUB

Subject

OBJ

Direct (accusative) object

OBL

Oblique argument

COMP

Complement clause

XOBJ

Predicative complement

ADV

Adverbial

XADV

Free predicative

ATR

Attribute

APOS

Apposition

NARG

Argument of noun

PART

Partitive

AUX

Auxiliary

http://www.hs-augsburg.de/~harsch/Chronologia/Lspost04/Egeria/ege_it00.html

The PROIEL Corpus

Relation

Explanation

VOC

Exclamation

73

j As Table 3 shows, OBJ includes onlyy accusative objects. The relation OBL is used uluding what are traditionally labelled indirect objects, as well as prepositional arguments. In addition, arguments of adjectives and complements of prepositions are tagged as OBL. Further details of the syntactic annotation (secondary dependencies etc.) are not important to us, and I do not discuss those here (see Haug et al. 2009 for details). In the following sections, I describe the information structure annotation (Section 3.1.3) and the animacy annotation (Section 3.1.4).

3.1.3 Information Structure Annotation dkground, givenness, saliency, anaphoricity etc. In my study, as in the PROIEL corpus, information structure includes givenness, anaphoricity, and topicality.

3.1.3.1 Givenness Annotation Givenness can be approached in terms of discourse or hearer status, and a fundamental distinction is made between old/given and new (inter alia Kuno 1972; Halliday & Hasan 1976; Chafe 1976). Several scholars opt for a basic tripartite distinction, sometimes with subgroups. Chafe (1994), for instance, distinguishes between given, accessible and new. Prince (1992) defines old and new in terms of two cross-cutting dichotomies, namely three p possible combinations: brand-new, unused and textually y evoked. The pproach to givenness, and is based on a basic tripartite distinction between what they call old, mediated and new, with subgroups. Such tripartition is the basis of the annotation scheme of Götze et al. (2007) as well, who distinguish between given, accessible and new. Prince (1981), in her seminal work on givenness, proposes a much more fine-grained classifica-

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Methods and Data Extraction

tion of what she, instead of givenness, ibility of applying a more fine-grained classification like the one in Prince (1981), however, is reasonably rejected by Nissim et al. (2004) as being hard to apply in practice.67 A somewhat different approach to givenness is the DRT (Discourse Representation Theory) approach found in Riester (2008) and Riester et al. (2010). DRT was first presented in Kamp (1981). Its basic idea is that the interpretation of definite expressions depends on the discourse context, which is constantly changing as new discourse referents are introduced (see also Heim 1982). In technical terms, definite expressions are bound in the discourse context. Beyond the discourse context, Kamp (2008) assumes several other contexts in which definite expressions can find their referents, such as the environment context (which comprises the elements in the immediate discourse situation) and the encyclopaedic context (which comprises encyclopaedic world knowledge). The referent of a definite description is not always found in a context, however. There are cases in which the referent has to be accommodated, viz. comes into existence at the time of utterance (Lewis, 1979). Like the annotation scheme of Riester et al. (2010), the givenness status anp builds on the DRT idea of contexts, but without notation of the PROIEL corpus xpressions since such a distinction is not applicable to languages without articles, and a uniform scheme applicable to all the languages in the PROIEL corpus was desirable. Based on a fundamental tripartition GIVEN MEDIATED/ACCESSIBLE NEW with subgroups, such as is found in Nissim et al. (2004), as mentioned above, as well as Götze et al. (2007), the following givenness status tags are used: Table 4: Givenness status tags in the PROIEL corpus Description

Tag in the PROIEL corpus:

Context where the referent is to be found:

Anaphora

OLD / OLD_INACT

Preceding discourse (OLD_INACT is used for referents that are mentioned more than 13 sentences away)

67 The Givenness hierarchy of Gundel et al. (1993) is another approach to givenness. They approach givenness in terms of cognitive statuses, as we have seen in Chapter 2.

The PROIEL Corpus

75

Description

Tag in the PROIEL corpus:

Context where the referent is to be found:

Situational use68

ACC_SIT

The immediate discourse situation

Indirect/associative anaphora

ACC_INF

The referent is inferable from preceding discourse

Larger situation uses68

ACC_GEN

General knowledge encyclopaedic knowledge (world knowledge) or the shared knowledge of speaker and hearer

None of the above

NEW

No context

In addition, a KIND tag is used for generic referents, such as tumbae in (78): (78)

monticulus non little.hill-NOM not solent esse be.wont-PRS.3PL be-INF

satis grandis, very big-NOM tumbae, tombs-NOM.PL

sed but sed but

factus sicut made-NOM.SG as grandes: big-NOM.PL

(Itin. XIII.3) Kinds are different from individuals, and kind-referring noun phrases may have properties different from noun phrases referring to individuals, for instance regarding definiteness marking. Non-specific referents are of a different nature than specific referents. These are referents that only exist inside certain embeddings, such as negation, modality and quantification (so-called opaque contexts, see Karttunen, 1976); they are discourse referents with no corresponding real-world referent (see Section 2.1.5 above). It is possible to refer back to the letter by a null pronoun in (79) because the null pronoun is inside the modal embedding. (79)

Quotus enim quisque est qui how.many-NOM.SG for every-NOM.SG be-PRS.3SG REL.NOM.SG epistulam paulo graviorem ferre possit letter-ACC.SG little.more weightier-ACC.SG convey-INF can-PRS.3SG nisi eam pellectione relevarit. if.not that-ACC.SG reading.through-ABL.SG lighten-PRF.3SG

68 Terms used e.g. by Himmelmann (1996).

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If the null pronoun were not inside the modal embedding, the sentence would be ungrammatical:

* nemo epistulam paulo graviorem ferre none-NOM.SG letter-ACC.SG little.more weightier-ACC.SG convey-INF potest. Itaque eam pellectione can-PRS.3SG therefore that-ACC.SG reading.through-ABL.SG relevat. lighten-PRS.3SG -one is able to convey a letter rather weightier than usual. Therefore, he lightens it by skimming i

(80)

Since non-specific referents are of a different nature in that they do not have a real-world referent, only a discourse referent, they get their own tags: Table 5: Non-specific givenness status tags in the PROIEL corpus Tag

Description

NON_SPEC_OLD

The non-specific counterpart to OLD

NON_SPEC_INF

The non-specific counterpart to ACC_INF

NON_SPEC

The non-specific counterpart to NEW

QUANT

Quantifier restriction

A special non-specific tag is the QUANT tag, which is used for quantifier restrictions. Quantifier restrictions are the words that determine the range of the quantifier, such as annos in (81): (81)

Duces leader-NOM.PL una cum together with

vero ii deliguntur qui but that-NOM.PL choose-PRS.PASS.3PL REL.NOM.PL Quinto Sertorio omnes annos Quintus-ABL Sertorius-ABL all-ACC.PL year-ACC.PL

be-PLUPRF.3PL 3.21.5)

The PROIEL Corpus

77

Finally, the givenness status ANCHORED is given to referents that have not been mentioned previously and cannot be retrieved from any other context but are identifiable through modification, for instance by a (definite) possessor (as in Moyses ... sepulchrum illius), a complement clause, or a restrictive relative clause, as in the following example: (82)

Nam ex illa hora, qua omnes nocte for from ille-ABL.SG hour-ABL.SG REL.ABL.SG all-NOM.PL night-ABL.SG in Ierusolima reuertuntur cum episcopo in Jerusalem-ABL return-PRS.3PL with bishop-ABL

Note, however, that ANCHORED is not a givenness status tag used in the PROIEL corpus, but in my data set. Noun phrases whose head noun is tagged as NEW or NON_SPEC and which contain additional information in the shape of e.g. a relative clause or a possessive pronoun are returned as ANCHORED.

3.1.3.2 General Principles Behind the Givenness Annotation The general principle of the givenness annotation is to annotate all referential noun phrases, including null-anaphora. The verb of headless relative clauses is also annotated since in the dependency-based syntax of the PROIEL corpus they are equivalent to noun phrases. Relative pronouns and appositions are not tagged since they are always co-referential with their head. Note finally that the annotation is linear, so that in (83), for instance, se is tagged as NEW whereas montes illi, inter quos ibamus gets an OLD tag: (83)

ubi se tamen montes illi, where REFL.ACC.PL however mountains-NOM.PL ille-NOM.PL inter quos ibamus, aperiebant et faciebant through REL.ACC.PL go-IMPF.1PL open-IMPF.3PL and make-IMPF.3PL uallem valleyy ACC .sg infinite-ACC.SG

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On the other hand, it is always the head of the noun p phrase which is tagged. Take monticulum istum, ipse ... ministrabatt for instance. Ipse is the head of the noun phrase monticulum istum, ipse, whereas monticulum istum is analysed syntactically as an apposition. Because ipse is the head of the noun phrase, ipse gets a tag and not monticulum istum, even though monticulum istum precedes ipse.

3.1.3.3 Anaphoric Links All OLD and NON_SPEC_OLD referents get an anaphoric link that points back to the previous mention of the referent (co-reference link). The noun phrases tagged as OLD_INACT, on the other hand, do not get a link. The anaphoric links do not necessarily point back to annotated material. For instance, a noun phrase like eo yp loco o OLD and linked to a preceding adverbial ibi, arises a stretch of discourse or points back to an event or series of events, the anaphoric link points back to the last finite verb of that passage. In the following example, for instance, hoc would be linked back to respondent: (84)

dicet psalmum quicumque de presbyteris say-PRS.3SG psalm-ACC.SG whoever-NOM.SG from priest-ABL.PL et respondent omnes; post hoc fit and answer-PRS.3PL all-NOM.PL after this-ACC.SG make-PRS.pass.3SG oratio. prayer-NOM.SG p ne of the priests says a psalm to which all respond, and afterwards (lit. prayer is made;

Time expressions may get a link pointing back to the last finite verb in the stretch of discourse covering the time period the time expression refers to, as in (85), where eadem die would be linked back to profecta sum: (85)

reuersa sum Tharso ad iter returned-NOM.SG be-PRS.1SG Tarsus-INDECL to journey-ACC.SG meum, ubi facta statiua, triduana in my-ACC.SG where made-ABL.SG halt-ABL.SG of.three.days-ABL.SG in nomine Dei profecta sum inde name-ABL.SG God-GEN departed-NOM.SG be-PRS.1SG thence iter meum. Ac sic perueniens eadem

The PROIEL Corpus

79

journey-ACC.SG my-ACC.SG and thus arriving-NOM.SG same-ABL .SG die ad mansionem, quae appellatur day-ABL.SG to station-ACC.SG REL.NOM.SG call-PRS.pass.3SG Mansocrenas [ ] Mansocrenae-ACC I returned to Tarsus and to my journey. From Tarsus, after a halt of three days, I set out on my journey in the Name of God, and arriving on the same day at a station called Mansocren The inferable (ACC_INF and NON_SPEC_INF) referents also get a link, but in these cases, the link is not a co-reference link, but an inference link, pointing back to the element that licences the inference. Also in the case of QUANTs, it is possible to link back to antecedents that refer to the same referent. Such links do not necessarily express co-referentiality. They can also be inference links. Note that if a QUANT referent is picked up later in a specific (non-opaque) context, it gets an ACC_INF tag with an inference link pointing back to the QUANT noun phrase, as in the following example, where the null pronoun would be linked to omnes: (86)

omnes ad manum satis all-NOM.PL to hand-ACC.SG draw.near-PRS.3PL very praecipuum est, PRO-SUB quod faciunt peculiar-NOM.SG be-PRS.3SG that arrange-PRS.3PL that hey arrange 5)

Figure 8 below shows what the information structure annotation (givenness and anaphoric links) may look like. It exemplifies several of the givenness status tags and their anaphoric links. The blue lines are the anaphoric links. For instance, we see that the first OLD Ierusolimam (in the seventh line from the top) is linked by a co-reference link to the previous occurrence of Ierusolimam. Likewise, OLD Deo (in the fifth line from the bottom) is linked by a co-reference link to Dei, which in turn is linked back by a co-reference link to Deo in the previous sentence. Moreover, patriam and animus, which are indirect anaphors, ACC_INF in the PROIEL annotation, are provided with an inference link pointing back to the null pronoun referring to Egeria, the PRO-SUB in the line above. This PROSUB, in turn, is linked by a co-reference link to me. There are two examples of referents that would be returned as ANCHORED in extracting my data, namely nomine Dei at the beginning of the annotated sen-

80

Methods and Data Extraction

tence and corpus illius at the end. The head of the noun phrase is NEW, but the noun phrase contains modification by Dei and illius, respectively, which assists the addressee in identifying the referent. Mesopotamiam, Syriae, Thomae and Edessam are tagged as ACC_GEN because they are assumed to belong to the general world knowledge of the hearer. Note that when these referents are picked up again, they are of course OLD rather than ACC_GEN (cf. illius which is tagged as OLD and linked back to Thomae). Moreover, we see that omnibus locis sanctis is given the QUANT tag because of the quantifier omnibus. The two occurrences of orationes are NON_SPEC because they do not refer to specific prayers, but whichever prayer is said in the specific places; they have a discourse referent, but no corresponding real-world referent.

Figure 8: Example of the information structure annotation in the PROIEL corpus69

69 The anaphoric links are not easily readable when all are shown at the same time, as here. Some clarification is in order. The link from Ierusolimam in the annotated sentence goes back to Ierusolimam in the previous sentence. The link from me goes back to the PRO-SUB in the second line from the top, and the link from the first PRO-SUB in the annotated sentence goes back to me. The links from patriam and animus both go back to the first PRO-SUB in the annotated sentence, and the second PRO-SUB is linked back to the first PRO-SUB. The link from Deo goes back to Dei.

The PROIEL Corpus

81

3.1.3.4 The Topic Guesser Information structure in the PROIEL corpus and in my study includes topicality. The noun phrases in the PROIEL corpus are not tagged for topicality, however; information on topicality is extracted using the so-called topic guesser. We saw in Section 2.2.1.5 that topicality is not an easily defined notion. An additional problem in identifying topics is that the diagnostics crucially rely on native speaker intuitions, which are not available to us for Latin or indeed for any of the other languages in the PROIEL corpus. Therefore, it seemed a better solution to decompose topics into a set of multiple weighted features, annotate the noun phrases for these, and let a program determine topicality automatically. To this end, members of the PROIEL project developed the topic guesser. The topic guesser is an algorithm that selects potential topic candidates and ranks them according to a number of parameters known to correlate with topichood cross-linguistically.70 The algorithm considers as topic candidates all arguments of main clause verbs that are annotated for givenness. The topic candidates are then ranked according to the following parameters: – Givenness status: OLD is best, NEW and ACC_GEN are excluded – Place on the hierarchy of syntactic functions: subjects are best – Place on the animacy hierarchy: HUMAN is best – Word order: first is best – Realisation: null pronouns, personal pronouns and personal names are – favoured – Relative saliency: is the topic candidate a member of a longer and tighter anaphoric chain than the competition? – Properties of the immediate antecedent: does it outrank the intervening referents on the syntactic function, animacy and givenness hierarchies? The results of the topic guesser have been shown to accord with human intuitions at a frequency of about 90 %. The algorithm is therefore a reliable means of identifying aboutness topics. Also, in order to avoid circularity (because the parameters used to identify topics are the same as those with which topicality is thought to interact), and to show that topicality cannot be equated with one of these parameters but is indeed determined by them all, parameters were removed one by one. As the effect of this was nil, all the parameters do indicate discourse prominence and must be included.

70 The algorithm was written by Dag Haug and Hanne Eckhoff.

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Methods and Data Extraction

3.1.4 Animacy Annotation As mentioned before (in Section 2.2.1.4), the animacy annotation in the PROIEL corpus is based on a more fine-grained distinction than the traditional tripartite distinction between HUMAN, ANIMATE and INANIMATE. More fine-grained animacy categories can be identified, as Zaenen et al. (2004) have shown. The lemmata in the PROIEL corpus are annotated for ani-grained classification. The particular animacy categories in the PROIEL corpus are as follows: Table 6: Animacy annotation in the PROIEL corpus Animacy tag

Short description (following Zaenen et al. 2004)

HUMAN

Refers to one or more humans

ANIMAL

Non-human animates

CONCRETE

Concrete objects or substances

NONCONC

Events and anything else that is not prototypically concrete but clearly inanimate

ORG

Groups of humans displaying some degree of group identity

PLACE TIME

applied to expressions referring to periods of time

VEH

Vehicles

Animacy tagging was done at lemma level in the Greek New Testament text. The animacy annotation of the Greek lemmata was then transferred to the Latin lemmata, and checked manually. The most frequent lemmata found in the Itinerarium Egeriae but not in the New Testament were also tagged. Information about animacy for pronominal forms is provided through the anaphoric links. If the anaphoric link does not ultimately go back to a noun with an animacy tag, however, there is no information about animacy. Animacy annotation being done at lemma level has the consequence that if a lemma normally refers to, say, an animal, that lemma will be tagged as ANIMAL, even though at the token level there may be instances in which the lemma refers to a concrete entity, for instance. Such is the case with uitulus, the Itinerarium Egeriae, which is tagged as ANIMAL because the referent of uitulus is usually an animal, but which at the token level in the Itinerarium Egeriae refers to the Golden Calf, which is a concrete object rather than an animal.

The PROIEL Corpus

83

3.2 Data Extraction For the present study, every noun phrase of the Itinerarium Egeriae was extracted. In total, there are 6727 noun phrases, 71 all of which contain information on the following: – Sentence id – Chapter title and chapter id – If the noun phrase contains a demonstrative, which one? – Demonstrative in the same case as the head noun? (In order to distinguish between true adnominal demonstratives (mater illa ), and demonstratives that are actually pronominal (mater illius)) – Clause head person (In order to exclude the first and second person null pronouns) – Phrase head (in the form it occurs in the text) – Phrase head lemma – Lexical reference (What the noun phrase refers to. For the pronominal forms, this is not the same as the phrase head lemma) – Part of speech of anaphor and antecedent – Syntactic function of anaphor and antecedent – Givenness status – Antecedent distance in words and sentences – Anaphoric (backward) chain length, in general and within the current chapter – Forward chain length – The type of clause in which the antecedent appears – Antecedent within the same section? – Topicality of the antecedent and the anaphor – Number of same-number competitors – Number of same-number-and-gender competitors – Animacy – Is the noun phrase modified by a relative clause? That is, the data for the noun phrase Ierusolimam in Figure 8 for instance, appear as follows:72

71 I am not, however, interested in all of them. See the introductions to Chapter 4 through 6 for the data selected for the empirical studies. The data can be downloaded as an Excel file from http://folk.uio.no/mjhertze/data.xls

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Methods and Data Extraction

Table 7: Data extracted for Ierusolimam in Figure 8: sentence_id

demonstrative

phrase_head_ part_ of_speech

dem_same_case chapter_title

57658

-

Ne

-

chapter_id

phrase_head_ lemma

phrase_head

lexical_ reference

relation

1280

Hierosolyma

Ierusolimam

Hierosolyma

obl

clause_head_ person

info_status

antecedent_ distance_ in_words

antecedent_ distance_ in_sentences

antecedent_ relation

-

old

27

1

obl

antecedent_ part_ of_speech

antecedent_ clause_type

antecedent_ in_same_ section

chain_length

chain_length_ chapter

Ne

main

FALSE

1

0

forward_ chain_length

topic

antecedent_ topic

no_of_ competitors_ same_number

no_of_ competitors_ same_number_ and_gender

2

FALSE

FALSE

4

0

Animacy

relative_clause?

Place

FALSE

Per. Aeth. XVII

72 For practical reasons, the presentation as found in the downloadable Excel sheet is modified here.

The PROIEL Corpus

85

In Table 7, note first the sentence id and chapter id. Every sentence and chapter in the PROIEL corpus has a unique id.73 In this way, y it is easy y to look up the column that there is no demonstrative because the noun phrase p does not conemonstrative

about clause head person because the verb, uenissee The length of the anaphoric chain is measured by the number of mentions made to the referent in the previous context. Chain length within the chapter was used to determine whether the antecedent is within the same chapter. Forward chain length is measured as the number of mentions made to the referent in the subsequent context. Moreover, note that in counting the number of competitors, null arguments are not included. Electronic corpora and automatic data extraction have clear advantages. It enables us to look at large amounts of data, and it greatly simplifies the task of collecting and analyzing our data. Occasional errors, however, inevitably occur in the automatic data extraction process, and some details may be wrong. But errors may occur in manually collected data sets too, and the benefits of an automatic approach as the one adopted here in my opinion outweigh its disadvantages. Note in particular, however, that in my data set there are a few cases in which a noun phrase tagged with givenness status OLD does not contain information about the antecedent. This holds true for less than ten noun phrases, however, and in any case, the missing data does not affect the results of the present study.

3.3 Statistical Methods For statistical analysis and graphics, I make use of the computational statistics programming environment R, originally designed by Robert Gentleman and Ross Ihaka at the University of Auckland.74 In addition to its built-in capabili-

73 The same holds for all the lemmata and tokens, but they have not been used for the present study. 74 See http://www.r-project.org/index.html for more information about R. R can also be freely downloaded from this page.

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ties, the capabilities of R can be extended through user-created packages, which allow specialised statistical techniques, graphical devices etc. I use (primarily in Chapter 4) classification trees more precisely, conditional inference trees to visualise the relative contribution of the various variables that are assumed to influence the choice of referring expression. The 75 is used to create the trees. The classification trees recursively subdivide the data into ever smaller sets and subsets. Splits are visualised as circles that represent those variables that can subdivide y Figure 9 is an example p of a classificathe data in a statistically significant way. tion tree, created using the builtshows how temperature and wind speed predict the level of ozone:

Figure 9: Example of classification tree created in R

Let us consider a measurement with air temperature of 70 and wind speed of 12, for instance. As we can see, at the highest level the data are divided into two > 82. Our measurement, categories according to air temperature: either then, follows the left branch (temperature p ccording to wind speed: either > 6.9. Our measurement now follows the

75 Package documentation is available at cran.r-project.org/web/packages/party/party.pdf

The PROIEL Corpus

87

right branch (speed > 6.9). The final division depends on temperature and has two categories: either > 77. Since our measurement has temperature it gets classified in node 5. If we look at the boxplot for ozone level in this node, we can see that our measurement is associated with a relatively low level of ozone.76 Furthermore, I make extensive use of tests of statistical significance. Significance tests show whether a result is due to chance or indicates some real tendency. As is common practice, I set the statistical significance level to 0.05. That is, if the p-value is 0.05 or smaller, we can reasonably conclude that the result is not due to chance. I do not discuss statistical significance testing further, or the details of significance tests.77 Suffice it to note which tests are used and to what purpose. I use chi-squared tests, Fisher tests and t-tests for this study. The p-values are computed in R. The chi-squared test is used to determine whether the difference in number of occurrences between two or more forms or features is signifi-squared test (chi-squared test for independence) tests the correlation between one categorial dependent variable and one categorial independent variable (Gries, 2009: 192). In other words, it can be used to test p whether the choice of expression shows significant correlation with, say, ante-squared test is not reliable, and as an alternative, I use the Fisher test. Finally, I use the t-test in cases in which there is one dependent interval/ratio variable and one independent nominal variable. That is, the t-test is used to determine whether the mean of two populations differs significantly. I use it here to test the differences between the forms with respect to anaphoric chain length, for instance.

3.4 Summary In this chapter, I described the PROIEL corpus, the annotation in this corpus and how my data were extracted from this corpus. A note on statistical methods was also provided.

76 Example found at http://www.exegetic.biz/blog/2013/05/package-party-conditionalinference-trees/ 77 For introductions to the use of statistics in linguistics, see e.g. Baayen (2008) and Gries (2009). These works both show how R can be used for analysing linguistic data.

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The remaining part of the book is organised as follows. In Chapter 4, I discuss the three main groups of referring expressions in the Itinerarium Egeriae; full NPs, overt pronominal forms and null pronouns. Chapter 5 is a study of the various kinds of pronominal forms, whereas Chapter 6 is an investigation of the various kinds of full NPs. Chapter 7 is a conclusion and summary of the findings.

4 Full NPs, Overt Pronominal Forms and Null Pronouns The present chapter discusses the three main groups of referring expressions in the Itinerarium Egeriae, namely full NPs, overt pronominal forms and null pronouns.78 I examine how the choice of expression correlates with the variables thought to influence referent accessibility and/or the choice of referring expression, as shown in Section 2.2. Table 8: is a synopsis of the frequency of full NPs, overt pronominal forms and pro: Table 8: Full NPs, overt pronominal forms and pro in the Itinerarium Egeriae79 Expression

Number of occurrences

Full NP

4367

86.67 %

Overt pronominal

408

8.1 %

pro

264

5.24 %

whether proper nouns or common nouns, and whether the NP contains anyy onominal occurrences of what are tr hic, ille, is, ipse and idem.80 Indefinite pronouns, relative pronouns, reflexive pro o pronouns and possessive pronouns are not included.

78 For reasons of brevity, I will be labelling null pronouns as pro (but in the Latin examples they appear as PRO-SUB/OBJ/OBL). Importantly, pro is not to be confused with the pro of syntactic theories. Here, pro is simply short for null pronoun , whether of a finite or an infinite clause, and in any syntactic function. 79 As occurrences without givenness status tags (see Section 3.1.3) are included in this table and in Figure 10 below, the numbers in the subsequent figures and tables do not add up to the numbers in Table 8 and Figure 10. 80 It is not obvious that all of these are in fact demonstratives in the Itinerarium Egeriae (see Chapter 5 and 6). Iste is only used adnominally in the Itinerarium Egeriae.

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Full NPs, Overt Pronominal Forms and Null Pronouns

subsumes all null arguments whose verbal head has third person morphology. 81 The reason I discuss pro as a separate category is that pro is thought to require particularly high accessibility, and may behave differently than the overt pronominal forms. Also, as we will see, pro is (practically) never used in nonsubject functions, whereas the overt pronominal forms are. Finally, I will not be concerned with quantified noun phrases (givenness status QUANT in the PROIEL annotation). One might argue that relative pronouns appearing in soconnections should be included in the data set. These are cases in which it has traditionally been said that the relative clause is not really a relative clause, but functions as a main clause, and the relative pronoun is viewed as equivalent to a demonstrative (e.g. Kühner & Stegmann 1955: 319; Hofmann & Szantyr 1972: 570; see also references in Touratier 1980: 408 410). Bolkestein (1996) sees this type of usage of the relative pronoun as a specialised third person reference device. (87) exemplifies the free relative connection: (87)

castra camp-ACC.PL milibus thousand-ABL.PL

posuerunt; quae castra amplius pitch-PRF.3PL REL.NOM.PL camp-NOM.PL more passuum VIII latitudinem patebant. pace-GEN.PL breadth-ACC.SG extend-IMPF.3PL

miles in breadth. (Caes. Gal. 2.7.4) y discussion for two reasons. First, it I leave the free relative connection out of my clauses (see e.g. discussion in Bolkestein 1996: 554 556), and it is by no means p obvious that the free relative connection should be viewed as a phenomenon ses at all (Touratier 1980: 408 452; Calboli

81 By taking out null arguments explicitly marked as having a third person verbal head, we lose the null arguments of infinite verb forms, which carry no information about person. Instead of including null arguments whose verbal head has a third person morphology, an alternative approach is to exclude null arguments whose verbal head has neither first nor second person morphology. In this way, the null arguments of infinite verb forms would be included in the data set. However, null arguments of infinite verb forms may have first, second or third person reference. Thus, by including the null arguments of infinite verb forms, we would get a number of null arguments whose reference whether to a first, second or third person is unknown. Accordingly, the best solution is to explicitly include only those null arguments with a verbal head with third person morphology, thereby excluding the null arguments of infinite verb forms.

A Restriction on pro

91

1985). Moreover, the free relative connection is infrequent in the Itinerarium Egeriae; only 31 out of 562 relative sentences are possible instances of the free relative connection.82 Since there are few occurrences of the free relative connection, including these occurrences in the data set would not affect my conclusions in any substantial degree. The chapter is organised as follows. In 4.1 I present the apparent restriction on pro that I have already mentioned, namely that it occurs in subject function only. In Section 4.2, I discuss the non-anaphoric uses of the full NPs, overt pronominal forms and pro. Section 4.3 deals with the anaphoric uses of these forms.

4.1 A Restriction on pro As mentioned in the introduction to this chapter, (third person) pro seems to be restricted to subject function in the Itinerarium Egeriae. Figure 10 shows the distribution of the referring expressions in various syntactic functions:

Figure 10: Syntactic function of the referring expressions in the Itinerarium Egeriae83

As we can see, pro is practically absent in non-subject functions. There is, in fact, only one possible instance of a third person pro in non-subject function:

82 The relative is pronominal in 10 of them and adnominal in 21. 83 Pronominal in this pronominal form .

92 (88)

Full NPs, Overt Pronominal Forms and Null Pronouns

Duxit etiam nos et ad illum palatium lead-PRF.3SG also we-ACC also to ille-ACC.SG palace-ACC.SG superiorem, quod habuerat primitus rex higher-ACC.SG REL.ACC have-PLUPRF.3SG first king-NOM.SG Aggarus, et si qua praeterea loca erant, Abgar-NOM and if any-NOM.PL moreover places-NOM.PL be-IMPF.3PL monstrauit PRO-OBJ nobis.84 show-PRF.3SG we-DAT higher ground, and if there were any other places he showed them to us.

The identification of pro objects (or obliques) is not as straightforward as the identification of pro subjects. In null subject languages, which include both Classical Latin and the Latin of the Itinerarium Egeriae, we can assume a pro subject whenever there is no overt subject of the verb. 85 In other syntactic functions it is not always obvious whether a verb has a pro in object/oblique function or if it is used absolutely and has no object or oblique argument whatsoever. In the PROIEL annotation, pro objects and pro obliques are inserted if (and only if) a specific referent can be inferred. In (88), this is indeed the case; the pro object refers to praeterea loca . There is a third possible analysis of (88): the si-clause may be a free relative clause86 that functions as the direct object of monstravit. The fact that we find several Latin examples in which such a si-clause invariably with an indefinite qu-pronoun immediately after si is coordinated with a regular noun phrase object, points towards this analysis: (89)

sed vides-ne accessuram ei curam, but see-PRS.2SG-INTERROG reach-FUT.INF.ACC that-DAT.SG care-ACC.SG ut sensus quoque suos eorum-que omnem that sense-ACC.PL also POSS.REFL.ACC.PL that-GEN.PL-and all-ACC.SG appetitum et si qua sint adiuncta desire-ACC.SG and if any-NOM.PL be-PRS.3PL adjoined-NOM.PL ei membra tueatur? that-DAT.SG organ-NOM.PL protect-PRS.3SG

84 PRO-SUB/OBJ/OBLs are inserted in the examples only when relevant for the discussion. 85 With the exception of a small, well-defined group of impersonal verbs. 86 With maximalizing semantics (Grosu & Landman 1998).

Restriction on on pro pro AA Restriction

93

But do you mark how it will further be concerned to protect its sensory faculties also and all their desire, and any additional organs it may have

The precise analysis of this kind of constructions, however, is not essential for my study. Whether we assume the object of monstravit is pro or the si-clause, it remains a fact that pro (practically) never occurs outside subject function in the Itinerarium Egeriae since (88) is the only possible occurrence of a non-subject pro. Therefore, I do not discuss the syntactic analysis of (88) any further. Since pro is in practice reserved for subject function in the Itinerarium Egeriae, the behaviour of pro in this text is different from its behaviour in Classical Latin, where pro objects are not uncommon (see e.g. Mulder 1991, van der Wurff 1994 and Luraghi 1997 for discussion), and even the rule in some cases, e.g. in coordinated sentences which share the same object (Hofmann & Szantyr 1972: 824): (90)

Domum meam maioribus praesidiis munivi house-ACC.SG my-ACC.SG better-ABL.PL defence-ABL.PL protect-PRF.1SG atque PRO-OBJ firmavi.87 and fortifyy PRF.1SG 1.4, cited in Luraghi 1997: 242)

.

The Romance languages differ in the extent to which they allow null objects,88 but the Romance languages certainly admit null pronouns in non-subject functions. In other words, the Itinerarium Egeriae differs from Classical Latin as well as from modern Romance as far as pro is concerned. It is beyond the scope of this study to discuss possible reasons for this difference, however. The important point is that pro is in practice absent in non-subject functions in the Itinerarium Egeriae. The tendency for pro to occur only in subject function in the

87 It is not obvious that there should be a PRO-OBJ here; one may argue that the object position is empty. Whichever position one takes, however, it does not alter the fact that this kind of sentences does not occur in the Itinerarium Egeriae. Moreover, if we follow the principles of the PROIEL annotation, we have to insert a PRO-OBJ here since we can infer a specific referent as the object of firmavi, namely the house. 88 On null objects in Romance see e.g. Rizzi (1986) on Italian, Raposo (1986) on European Portuguese, Lambrecht & Lemoine (2005) on French.

94

Full NPs, Overt Pronominal Forms and Null Pronouns

Itinerarium Egeriae is so strong, in fact, that it seems to be a syntactic restriction rather than just a tendency.

4.2 Non-Anaphoric Uses We saw in Section 2.2.3 that full NPs are lower accessibility markers than pronominal forms. Since not previously mentioned referents are less accessible than referents that have been, I expect full NPs to be the primary non-anaphoric devices. As will become clear, this is indeed the case in the Itinerarium Egeriae.

4.2.1 New Referents As predicted, Table 9 shows that when the referent is NEW or selected expression is a full NP in the vast majority of cases:

NON_SPEC,89

the

Table 9: Forms used for NEW and NON_SPEC referents

pro

Full NP NEW

304

99,67 %

0

NON_SPEC

416

96,52 %

14

Overt pronominal

3,25 %

1

0,33 %

1

0,23 %

When the referent is NEW or NON_SPEC memory nor in the (extra-)linguistic context and hence is hardly accessible at all. This accounts for the strong preference of NEW and NON_SPEC referents for full NPs. I comment on the few occurrences of pro and overt pronominal forms in Chapter 5. Note furthermore that none of the full NPs is a proper name. This is because the proper names found in the Itinerarium Egeriae refer to famous persons and places from the Bible, such as Moses, Abraham, Jerusalem and Golgotha, and thus they y are not NEW, but retrieved from the general knowledge of the addressee and hence tagged as ACC_GEN.

89 Recall from Section 3.1.3 that NON_SPEC is the non-specific counterpart to NEW.

Non-Anaphoric Uses

95

In her accessibility hierarchy (Figure 5 in Section 2.2.3 above), Ariel (1990: 73) assumes that proper names are lower accessibility markers than common nouns. This, however, does not seem entirely correct. A proper name like Moyses is indeed more informative than a common noun like, say, homo or uir, use Moyses refers to a unique referent whereas there are many possible referents of homo/uir in the world. Homo/uir therefore require a higher degree of accessibility in order for the addressee to identify the intended referent. Nevertheless, the referent of a proper name is usually y already y present in the memory, a proper name does not seem appropriate. If Egeria assumed that Moses was not already known to the addressees of her journal, could she have referred to him simply as Moyses? I think not. Some further information would be required. Whereas the referent of a common noun may be and often is completely y new to the addressee, proper names seem to require the presence of th higher accessibility than common nouns.

4.2.2 ANCHORED Referents When the referent is ANCHORED, the noun phrase contains additional information that assists the addressee in identifying the referent. Because of this additional information, pronominal forms are possible, although they are high accessibility markers and normally used when the referent is previously mentioned. Consider Table 10: Table 10: Forms used for ANCHORED referents Expression

Number of occurrences

Full NP

357

88.15 %

pro

0

0%

Overt pronominal

48

11.85 %

As we can see, the full NPs are preferred here, too. The following is an example of a full NP in which the noun phrase contains a genitive modifier and is therefore ANCHORED:

96 (91)

Full NPs, Overt Pronominal Forms and Null Pronouns

Itaque ergo duxit me primum ad palatium therefore then lead-PRF.3SG I-ACC first to palace-ACC.SG Aggari regis et ibi ostendit michi Abgar-GEN king-GEN.SG and there show-PRF.3SG I-DAT archiotepam ingens ipsius simillimam [ ] marble.statue-ACC.SG great-ACC.SG ipse-GEN.SG very.like-ACC.SG He thereupon led me first to the palace p of King Abgar, where he showed me a great marble statue of him (Itin. XIX.6)

I discuss the full NPs in more detail in Chapter 6. Although full NPs are preferred, overt pronominal forms are indeed used in some cases; when the noun phrase contains additional information assisting the addressee in identifying the intendended referent, a pronominal form can be an appropriate reference device even if the referent is not highly acccessible. Chapter 5 discusses the pronominal forms in more detail.

4.2.3 Inferable Referents When the referent is inferable,90 the selected expression is a full NP in the majority of the cases, as Table 11 shows: Table 11: Forms used for ACC_INF and NON_SPEC_INF referents

pro

Full NP ACC_INF

239

98.76 %

2

NON_SPEC_INF

38

100 %

0

Overt pronominal 0.83 %

1

0.41 %

0

p That is to say, inferable referents are usually not accessible enough for a pronominal form to be used, and a full NP is sel

90 That is, ACC_INF or NON_SPEC_INF in the PROIEL annotation. Cases in which the referent is inferable are often considered anaphoric as well (indirect/associative anaphora). Yet, inferable referents may show a different distribution of forms from that of forms used for direct anaphoric reference. Thus, anaphoric / anaphora means only direct anaphoric reference in the present study.

Non-Anaphoric Uses

in (92):

97

make your contribution as informative as is required . Such is the case

Et incipient episcopo ad manum and begin-PRS.3SG bishop-DAT.SG to hand-ACC.SG accedere singuli. 91 proceed-INF all-NOM.PL p

(92)

I discuss the inferable full NPs in more detail in Chapter 6. As we can see in Table 11, there are some albeit few occurrences in which an inferable referent is realised in pronominal form. Chapter 5 discusses these in more detail.

4.2.4 Generally Known and Generic Referents When the referent is generally known92 or generic,93 Egeria uses only full NPs, as Table 10 shows: Table 10: Forms used for ACC_GEN and KIND referents Full NP ACC_GEN

487

100 %

KIND

45

100 %

(93) is an example of a generally known referent, (94) of a generic one: (93)

Haec est autem uallis ingens et this-NOM.SG be-PRS.3SG but valley-NOM.SG great-NOM.SG and

91 Recall (from footnote 7 in Section 1.1.2) that in the Latin examples, the noun phrase under discussion is underlined whereas its antecedent is in boldface. In the case of an inferable referent (ACC_INF or NON_SPEC_INF) the noun phrase from which the referent is inferred, is in boldface. Likewise, in cataphoric examples, the antecedent that comes later is in boldface (as p this: The Lord is buried there . in hoc dixit: Dominus sepultus est ibii , 92 ACC_GEN in the PROIEL givenness status annotation. 93 KIND in the PROIEL givenness status annotation.

98

Full NPs, Overt Pronominal Forms and Null Pronouns

planissima, in qua filii Israhel commorati very.flat-NOM.SG in REL.ABL.SG son-NOM.PL Israel-INDECL waited-NOM.PL sunt his diebus, quod sanctus Moyses be-PRS.3PL this-ABL.PL day-ABL.PL when holy-NOM.SG Moses-NOM ascendit in montem Domini et fuit ibi ascend-PRF.3SG in mountain-ACC.SG Lord-GEN and be-PRF.3SG there quadraginta diebus et quadraginta noctibus. forty-INDECL day-ABL.PL and forty-INDECL night-ABL.PL Now this is the great and flat valley wherein the children of Israel waited during those days y when holy y Moses went up p into the mount of the (Itin. II.2) (94)

In eo ergo uico, qui est in in that-ABL.SG then village-ABL.SG REL.NOM.SG be-PRS.3SG in media planitie positus, in medio middle-ABL.SG level-ground-ABL.SG placed-NOM.SG in middle-ABL.SG loco est monticulus non satis place-ABL.SG be-PRS.3SG little-hill-NOM.SG not very grandis, sed factus sicut solent esse big-NOM.SG but made-NOM.SG as be.wont-PRS.3PL be-INF tumbae, sed grandes: tomb-NOM.PL but big-NOM.PL The village, which is situated in the middle of the level ground, has in its midst a little hill of no great size, shaped as large tombs are wont to (Itin. XIII.3)

Personal pronouns are high accessibility markers. Demonstratives require lower accessibility than personal pronouns. Nevertheless, as I pointed out in Section 2.2.3, pronominal forms, whether they are pronominal demonstratives or personal pronouns, require higher accessibility than full NPs because they contain little information assisting the addressee in identifying the referent. In particular, the referent of a personal pronoun must be present in the address-term memory and at the current centre of attention (Gundel et al. 1993). In other words, personal pronouns normally require previous mention of the referent. The referent of a pronominal demonstrative need not be present in short-term memory; it can be present in the immediate situation instead. Presence in long-term memory, on the other hand, as is the case with generally known referents and generics, does not render the referent accessible enough for either personal pronouns or pronominal demonstratives to be used. Hence

Anaphoric Uses

99

the absence of pronominal forms when the referent is generally known or generic.

4.2.5 Referents that are Present in the Immediate Situation If the referent is present in the immediate situation, 94 pronominal demonstratives are appropriate because the referent of a demonstrative need not be present in the linguistic context, but may also be present in the extra-linguistic context, i.e. the immediate situation (see Section 2.3.3). As Table 11 shows, there are indeed some occurrences of overt pronominal forms: Table 11: Forms used for ACC_SIT referents Expression

Number of occurrences

Full NP

21

75 %

pro

0

0%

Overt pronominal

7

25 %

I discuss the pronominal forms further in Chapter 5 and the full NPs in Chapter 6. Now that we have seen the distribution of forms for various kinds of referents not previously mentioned, I turn to the anaphoric uses of the full NPs, overt pronominal forms and pro.

4.3 Anaphoric Uses95 Table 12 shows the distribution of the anaphoric expressions in the Itinerarium Egeriae:

94 Givenness status ACC_SIT in the PROIEL annotation. 95 Noun phrases with givenness status OLD, OLD_INACT and NON_SPEC_OLD in the PROIEL corpus are all anaphoric.

100

Full NPs, Overt Pronominal Forms and Null Pronouns

Table 12: Number of occurrences of the various anaphoric expressions in the Itinerarium Egeriae Expression

Number of occurrences

Full NP

1775

79.70 %

pro

248

11.14 %

Overt pronominal

204

9.16 %

Since pro, as we saw in Section 4.1 above, occurs only in subject function (with one exception), I discuss the subject anaphors and non-subject anaphors separately with respect to the variables thought to influence accessibility and/or choice of anaphoric expression.

4.3.1 The Choice between the Subject Anaphors Before looking at the data, an overview of the subject anaphors is in order. The number of occurrences of each anaphoric expression in subject function is shown in Table 13: Table 13: Subject anaphors in the Itinerarium Egeriae Expression

Number of occurrences

Full NP

484

59.75 %

pro

247

30.49 %

Overt pronominal

79

9.75 %

Although I distinguish between pro and overt pronominal forms, I take the basic division to be between full NPs as low accessibility markers, on the one hand, and pro and other pronominal forms as high accessibility markers, on the other (see Section 2.2.3). Therefore, I also discuss pro and the overt pronominal forms together as one group of high accessibility markers.

Anaphoric Uses

101

4.3.1.1 Form of the Antecedent As we saw in Section 2.2.1, a number of scholars assume that the form of the antecedent influences accessibility and thus the choice of anaphoric expression. Figure 11 shows the distribution of full NPs, overt pronominal forms and pro across the various antecedent forms.

Figure 11: Distribution of anaphoric subject expressions across various antecedent forms

Recall from Section 2.2.1 that the antecedent forms to the left in Figure 11 are thought to be more accessible than the forms to the right. The behaviour of the anaphoric expressions is partly in accordance with this. pro is the highest accessibility marker, and we can expect pro to be the preferred anaphor when the antecedent itself is pro. This is indeed the case. pro occurs significantly more frequently than the full NPs when the antecedent is also pro (p